MadCap's Game Reviews - "Yu-Gi-Oh! Eternal Duelist Soul"

Oh, god, am I doomed to review every Yu-Gi-Oh! video game that has ever come out? I suppose I'll have to so long as my inbox keeps getting sent with links to ROMs. I'm not one to complain about free material to work off of, so here's Yu-Gi-Oh! Eternal Duelist Soul.

Right away, the game brings you to a main menu.



From here, you can select one of the seven choices. "Campaign" is pretty self-explanatory, if a little bit of a complete lie, but I'll get into that.  "Link Battle" is also pretty self-explanatory - you get your friend who also has a Game Boy Advance, you link, you battle.  "Deck Edit" is another no brainer, allowing the player to construct a deck (and you are given one starting out) that must be comprised of no less than 40 cards - split between monsters, magic, and trap cards as evenly as possibly to assure that the deck is at least playable.  "Record" is where you can look to see who you've won and lost against, and how many times you've won and lost against them.

Then there's "Calendar", which also allows me to look into the "plot" as it were. EDS really doesn't have a plot per se. But the calendar system is largely there to mark the days where the player will get a bonus booster pack from Grandpa Muto, as well as the bi-weekly tournaments and the big tournament in November that the game builds up (also, distanced from the show - each duel will take up one day of time). So there is no "plot", it's just a dueling simulator, like the much-maligned last game in the franchise that I played. And don't get me wrong, Millennium Battles was no Sacred Cards in terms of how bad it was, but it was...no, actually, it was worse than this, but I'll get into the why of it later.

"Card Trading" does exactly what you think, and "Password" is where you can bunch in those seven digit numbers at the bottom of a Yu-Gi-Oh! card to get the card in real life.  Of course, it has limitations. Some of the codes outright don't work until you've at least seen the card played in game. And, of course, the game is limited by the time period it comes from - the early 2000s. So if you're wanting to put your Stardust Dragon into the game to totally wreck little Yugi, Joey, and their friends, you're out of luck.  Lucky for you, you don't have to sort through your cards to find out which ones work and which don't - There's a wiki page for that.

So, how does the game play? Just like the trading card game of the time under the official tourney rules. Selecting "Campaign" will bring up a screen as seen above. The first tier of duelists is Yugi and the Friendship Brigade.  Once you have defeated each of them twice, the second tier opens that contains all the duelists that Joey defeated at Battle City...and Mai Valentine.  This process will continue, going through Marik and his Rare Hunters as well as Seto Kaiba, Yami Yugi and Bakura, and  eventually reaching the likes of Pegasus, Grandpa, and "Shimon"...who I thought was an Egyptian priest in the distant past and not blue, but hey, Forbidden Memories reference.

So basically, the game ends up being the same as any other Yu-Gi-Oh! simulator. There is actually some personality from the various duelists in small cutscenes before and after each duel, and that is far more than we were given in Millennium Battles, so I'm inclined to be slightly more charitable to this game than that one.  An attempt was made, though I'm wondering how exactly both versions of Yugi and Bakura are all hanging around the same Game Shop...or why the Rare Hunters are allowed to the tournaments after nearly killing - oh, wait, I'm sorry, "sending to the Shadow Realm" - Yugi's entire posse several times...

But then trying to figure out logic in an anime plot is a bit like trying to weld a car frame back together with bird seeds and gum, you just end up with sticky hands and a terrible humiliated feeling deep down in the pit of your soul.

...I may have been thinking about something else there.

Point is, not a bad game, but it's a simulator. It's actually a step up from games of the same kind that I've played before, but it's not too much better.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Eternal Duelist Soul is now available from Konami and Konami Computer Entertainment Japan for the Game Boy Advance.

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.

MadCap's Trailer Reactions - "The Fantastic Four"

Well...here we go again.

The Fantastic Four are a commonly known superhero team.  Created in 1961, they were made as the answer to DC's "Justice League of America". Yes, the FF predate even the Avengers in the Marvel universe.  Caught in a cosmic energy storm, four individuals were granted powers.  Reed Richards, utterly brilliant scientist seeking to study the universe itself, was given extreme elasticity and became Mr. Fantastic.  Sue Storm (later Sue Richards) was granted the power of invisibility and the ability to generate force fields over herself and others as the Invisible Girl (and later Invisible Woman).  Her cocky, hot-headed brother Johnny was given the power to generate and control flame, as well as wrap himself in a cocoon of pure flame simply by saying "flame on!", taking the moniker of the Human Torch.  And their pilot, Ben Grimm, arguably got the worst of the storm - his body mutating into an orange, rock-like flesh but becoming virtually indestructible as the Thing.

Unlike the traditional superhero conundrum of having to hide their secret identities, the Fantastic Four have been public about who they are and what they can do almost from the jump, and they're some of the most beloved superheroes in the Marvel universe. Sure, it means that their foes not only know who they are and how to find them, but the Four have always been a dysfunctional family that, when the chips are down and the need is dire, they can take on any foe or face any challenge if they're working together.  Whether it's against the dreaded Galactus, the fearsome Annihilus, or even the sinister machinations of the dreaded Doctor Doom, the FF are always up to the challenge.  So naturally - with a team that has such prestige and awesomeness - someone would want to make a movie out of it.

They did.  It sucked. But it was supposed to suck, since it was only made so the rights could be kept.

Not to be dissuaded (after all, they were the people who would later greenlight "X-Men Origins: Wolverine"), Fox got the rights from Marvel to produce a live-action adaptation of Marvel's First Family. This seemed like a sure-fire thing, given the team's long-standing history and popularity to comic fans. In fact, it could even be a chance to bring in a whole new audience into comic book films. Sony was doing amazing things with Spider-Man at the time, and Fox itself had had great success with the X-Men franchise - coming in with two films that were box office hits at the time. So, this seemed like it would go well.

It sucked, but it also made a lot of money.  So, naturally, because Fox wants to run all its assets into the ground that aren't Firefly (seriously? Joss Whedon gives you a jewel-encrusted egg and you've got no idea what to do with it? REALLY?!), they commissioned a sequel, this time based around the storyline from the comics known as the "Galactus Trilogy".  Galactus, for those who don't know, is (to put it as simply as possible) a gigantic alien being who eats planets.  In that storyline, he came for Earth - his herald being the mysterious Silver Surfer. So, high stakes, good villain, could very easily be made into a blockbuster, right?

It sucked. And I mean, sucked. Audiences who had loved the first film didn't much care for this one, and it only fared slightly better with critics than the first film did. Even so, this was enough that Fox decided to reevaluate its options...and make more X-Men sequels...which is an issue for another time and I'm getting severely off-topic.

Flash-forward to now, the present. Fox, continuing their longstanding trend of wringing money out of things that don't belong to them in the first place, have released a teaser for the rebooted series of films that they intend to do with the FF. Unlike certain other films that have released teasers of late, this actually has some things of substance to it and...well...it looks good.

No, I'm serious.

I've got some healthy skepticism, as we all should in particular with teaser trailers. Still, they seem to be going for a much more serious, The Dark Knight-esque style. I would normally be against this, seeing as Batman is not - despite his hype - the end all and be all of superheroes and should not be remotely treated as such, but for a series that's at this point gone through three terrible films that did not really seem to take the premise as seriously as it should have, this is really a welcome change.

The trailer has a voice over of an unseen individual, speaking of the human desire to discover, and we see what I assume to be Reed Richards (Miles Teller) both as a man and as a child performing experiments, who we know to be Sue Storm (Kate Mara) working computers, Johnny Storm (Michael B. Jordan) repairing a car, and Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell) playing baseball. The rest of the teaser details an experiment that is being run by Dr. Storm (Reg E. Cathey) that seems to be taking the place of the cosmic space trip, which is fine. After all, it's an adaptation.

Oh, and you're probably wondering why no comment on Michael B. Jordan? Don't care. If Samuel L. Jackson can play Nick Fury, I think we can give him a shot at Human Torch.  I mean, he can't be any worse than the last guy who played him...

...oops, sorry, Cap.

The voiceover, who I believe is Doom (Toby Kebbell), speaks of the consequences of human discovery and tells Richards to prepare for "what's coming". When Richards questions the individual (who is not seen clearly), he gets the cryptic reply of "the answers", leading into a short of the team from behind while facing what looks like the Ark from Halo.

I have to admit, I'm a bit intrigued now, which I thought I wouldn't be. I've pretty much become entirely disillusioned with the X-Men franchise (I didn't even go to see Days of Future Past) and I was more than hesitant about one particular change about Doom - namely that he's become an internet troll in this version instead of a megalomaniac ruler of a small Eastern European country - but again I remind myself of the Mantra of Adaptation - "it's only a movie/game/book/TV show, the original thing isn't ruined". Of course, that doesn't mean I won't critique it when it comes out. So, Fox, you've got me for this one, let's see the FF get a good movie for once.

Or, hey, you could just give the rights back to Marvel and we'd know they'd do it right.

...if Shane Black isn't involved, anyway.

The Fantastic Four is slated for release on August 7, 2015 from 20th Century Fox, Marvel Entertainment, and Marv Films.

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.

MadCap's Game Reviews - "Shadow of Mordor"

One cannot deny - largely due to the Peter Jackson-headed films of the early 2000s known as the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the oddly similar trio of movies known as the Hobbit trilogy more recently - that Middle-Earth has become an institution all it's own.  The original novels as written by J.R.R. Tolkien have evolved much beyond their humble beginnings as the start of every facet of fantasy fiction that exists today. Every novel, every video game, every film in the fantasy genre owes at least some of it's existence to Tolkien even if the connection isn't direct.

Dungeons & Dragons...Dragon Age...actually, this inspired a lot of RPGs.  Like...any in a medieval fantasy setting.

But with great fame comes great licensing.  Whether it's in the form of the aforementioned movies or, as we are so fond of here, video games.  As is the case with Shadow of Mordor, a title that very interestingly isn't going under the Lord of the Rings banner and is just going with a simple Middle-Earth as the pre-title. For some other titles I might find this a little ballsy but, again, this is the Tolkien epic that we're talking about and, again, the entire thing is an institution.  It's become so deeply embedded into popular culture that we know it by name without even needing to know the name of the franchise.

Sometimes, that can go really well and produce a game that becomes one that stands on it's own merits as a classic.  Other times, you get a game so bad the lead developer blocks you on Twitter for pointing it out (yes, Randy, I know I do it incessantly. Apologize and I'll be happy to stop). So where does Shadow of Mordor fall on the scale?  Let's look deeper within.

We are introduced to Talion, a grizzled ranger of Gondor with a broken sword (never heard that one before) and a sad backstory in which both his wife and son were killed by orcs and his own throat slit in a ritual sacrifice to summon...something. However, this gets Talion a Yu-Gi-Oh!-esque alternate persona in an elven wraith who has fragmented memories and gives Talion shiny new powers like being able to tear information out of the heads of enemies. So together, the pair of them take the emergency exit and must traverse the landscape of Mordor in order to get to the Black Hand of Sauron and defeat him so that the curse that keeps Talion from ever dying can be broken.

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Now, I'm not going to spend this review going on about the differences from the books and the films - that would be silly and take up way too much time.  After all, it's an adaptation and one has to take that into account in criticisms of things that don't work with the lore, but do work from a gameplay mechanics standpoint.  Thus why Mordor is looking a bit more leafy green than the "barren wasteland, riddled with fire and ash" that was so aptly described beforehand.  Speaking from experience, one can't very well hide with any skill in a barren wasteland. Against and between rocks? Maybe, but eventually you'd be found out unless your enemies are either blind or just astounding stupid.

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So, I do understand that. And, by extension, I understand why there are leafy patches around so as to justify the leafy bushes.

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Oh, you're wondering what the "Loading..." text is about? One of my gripes with this game. The loading screens. This game loads when you first start, it loads upon entering a mission area, it loads when you pause, it loads when you select a menu option, it loads when you leave the pause menu, it loads before a cutscene, it loads after a cutscene, and this game does have to be downloaded directly to the Xbox 360 Hard Drive, by the way. I wouldn't mind this so much except...well, it had to be downloaded directly onto the Hard Drive. Why all these pauses? If there so much being rendered on the screen that you can't load everything?

That might help to explain why - in spite of this being a triple AAA game - there are texture problems in certain areas, even in areas where the player has been standing for a while. You rotate the camera and a section of wall or the ground is blurry before it suddenly "pops" into the same appearance as that around it.  Compare Dragon Age: Inquisition from a few weeks ago, which also had to be installed from a first disk, but had no problems of the sort when playing from a second.  And that game had much larger areas to boot. Several larger areas.  It really confuses me to no end, and really drags down the game quite a bit.

I'm not kidding, this irritated me to no end when I first started playing to the point where I was ready to chuck it out a window.

However, where the game does redeem itself is in the combat.  And how does it do this? By shamelessly ripping off the Batman: Arkham series.  If that doesn't sound like a compliment, trust me, it is.  Considering rangers are set up in Tolkien's universe to be these combat-hardened badasses, it only makes sense that Talion can weave about through combat, moving seamlessly from sword slice to rolling over the back of an orc to slam your wraith-powered fist into the chest of another orc to stagger it just so you can pull a sweet finisher combo move (also, side note, the finishers are all pleasantly visceral. They clearly put quite a lot of work into them). It feels very organic like the moves of Batman atop the rooftops of Gotham City. So, yes, it does get a point in that regard. It is very good.

Also, the stealth that it borrows from that series is also good, but while also adding some new skills to the mix as well. With the Wraith inside of him, Talion can assault the minds of orcs that attack him to cause damage that otherwise renders him immobile and open to attack (but the time can be shortened with upgrades). There's the standard stealth attack which guarantees an insta-kill on everything but the bosses (and, sometimes, even on bosses depending on their health).  There's also, once it's unlocked, the Brutalize technique in which Talion mercilessly skewers an orc again and again in a manner that makes all orcs in a surrounding area run away with pants crapping fear.

However, on the subject of stealth, I do have to come to another gripe I have.  It's entirely possible to sneak out in the open, right up to an orc, and bury Talion's broken sword repeatedly in their face, before immediately moving to another and another if they happen to be close enough and somehow he remains unseen.  Apparently he has learned Monty Python's art of not being seen.  Or the enemy AI is rather useless when not engaged in combat.  Can they not see the not-at-all disguised man rummaging around the rocky terrain? While it is fun, and indeed hilarious to traipse about Mordor's rockiness stabbing orcs in the face and laughing over their mangled corpses, there's really no challenge in it and the orcs really only provide it when in packs, a la the boss battles that crop up (and those can be a real pain).

Boss battles that you're directed to via the "Nemesis System", a system that was apparently cut down considerably for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 versions because the development team wanted to be "focusing on the next-gen platforms".  "Dicks!", I reply, but the system as it works is essentially the same I've been told, simply dumbed down a bit.  Not that I really find this excusable, of course.  If you're going to half-ass for one system, you should half-ass all the way, or put the full-ass behind all of it.

The system as it works plays off the Always Chaotic Evil nature of orcs, namely that they're all more than happy to stab in the back the next person up in line so they can take his spot.  On their own, the orc captains, chieftains, and war chiefs will fight one another to jockey for position.  Talion's objective in getting to the Black Hand of Sauron involves taking out the war chiefs.  To do this, he joins up with an orc by the name of Ratbag who's more than willing to cut a deal so that he can become the sole war chief.  Just like Frodo's decision to help Gollum in the latter two volumes of the Lord of the Rings, I'm certain that Talion's kindness and charity will pay off in the end.

Oh, also - despite being modeled on the appearance from the films - Gollum shows up and isn't voiced by Andy Serkis.  Their choice for his voice actor isn't bad, and they had me fooled for a bit. Though if he starts going on about the Savior and how he's going to destroy Dante and rule humanity with it, I'm out.

Needless to say, however, the Nemesis system is rather neat and I do enjoy it.  It's especially funny if one of the bosses kills you, they'll remember doing so after Talion regenerates at one of the white towers that dots the landscape and goes after them again.  The common soldier orcs can also be promoted to captain or higher if they kill the player as well, increasing their power and standing within Sauron's army.  With some of them, I almost think it's worth it to allow yourself to be killed just so you can have certain opponents to fight, particularly during the time when the identity of the war chiefs is in question and Talion has to fight his way to them to get to the Black Hand and you actually do have to fight their immediate subordinates to gain intel about where their bosses are.

Which brings me to the upgrade system.  Talion gains experience from every kill and every quest. Once he gets enough, he gets an attribute point that can be put into either a ranger skill or a wraith skill. Ranger skills tend to focus on sword combat, defense, or health while wraith abilities will increase the amount of ranged arrows that can be shot, increases the amount of damage from Talion and the wraith's mind probe hand gesture, and some stealth properties.  These are arranged in tiers, with some not being able to be unlocked until the player progresses a certain distance in the main campaign.

Talion's weapons - sword, broken sword, and bow - can be upgraded with runes (dropped by bosses), slots on each weapon being unlocked for a certain amount of points.  They can range from doing more damage to staggering enemies on impact to restoring the player's health after a certain number in a chain of hits is met and much, much more.  It's interesting to find the right balance and - to give credit - it is nice that you can switch out your runes for any given situation that you might find yourself in, bringing in a facet of strategics that most hack n' slashes tend to either dumb down or avoid entirely.

So yes, this game is basically Batman: Mordor Asylum in structure, and that's not a bad thing. More games in the hack n' slash genre should follow the examples of that series, and Shadow manages to keep the flow moving from unarmed into sword combat.  A definite bravo!  Beyond issues with the development team didn't put the time or energy into making the Xbox 360/Playstation 3 versions up to par with the current-gen versions, this game is pretty good. I've definitely seen far worse adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien's work in video game format.

Or has everyone forgot The Lord of the Rings: Final Fantasy Edition? ...I mean, The Third Age?

Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor is now available from Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, Monolith Productions, and Behaviour Interactive for Microsoft Windows, Playstation 3, Playstation 4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin. 

MadCap's Mad Rantings - "It's The End of the Marvel Universe As We Know It"

Oooooh, boy.

And if you can't read the sarcasm in that, welcome. You must be new here.

So, I was traipsing about the internet and came across this.

...well, it was bound to happen eventually.  I mean, in spite of the fact that Joe Quesada said back in 2005 that if the main 616 and Ultimate universes ever crossed over, Marvel would officially be out of ideas (though he later reversed his position like we wish he would about One More Day),this was going to happen at some point and in some shape or form.  Nobody can really deny it. Why? Because comic book writers love their retcons.

Ah, yes, retcons!  Things that - when used well - can wipe away any inconsistencies or flubs in a story or - when used poorly as is often - can screw up things for years.  In this case...I don't know.  Throwing together not only the main Marvel universe and the Ultimate, but several others from What Ifs and spin-offs? Very tricky.  And then, of course, there's the title.

Secret Wars.

...really? You took the most beloved and well-remembered crossover in Marvel history (y'know, the one crossover that actually does what a crossover is supposed to do in comic books?) and decided to make that your title? Congrats on handing yourself a massive pair of shoes to fill.  Really, Secret Wars seems to be the last great Marvel crossover that anyone cares to remember (though, as I've heard, Mutant Massacre in the 90s wasn't terrible).  While Civil War tried to make Captain America the bad guy in a moral debate (which is insane), Original Sin had a very interesting whodunit story about the death of Uatu the Watcher that turned into being more concerned about advertising the tie-in comics than about telling a decent or even intelligible story, and even Spider-Verse has had some questionable moments (though I have enjoyed it, by the way), Secret Wars had only one thing going for it.

It. Kicked. Ass.

Thrown onto an alien world by an immensely powerful entity, it was a simple fight of good versus evil.  Heroes on one side, villains on the other, badassery ensues.  Now, that's not to say that stories that give us heroes versus heroes can't be good.  However, the problem is...none of Marvel's crossovers that involve heroes versus heroes have been. This is because either, A) Marvel attempts to flaunt a ridiculous premise that they don't actually bother to explain fully and attempt to turn the person who is the paragon of all things good, decent, and moral into the villain (Civil War), or B) Marvel has done so many of these types of crossovers by this point that even if the attempt were made to do this, it would fall completely flat.  The "hero vs. hero" concept has become so played out that it's become passe.

Needless to say, I'm hoping the new Secret Wars really isn't going to be that.  Though now, I can actually say a few good things about it.  Namely how everything is now together in terms of characters and ideas.  This is actually good, since it would allow new ideas to be created and new opportunities to be explored.  However, where this is going to trip up - if it does anywhere - is in the execution.  Like with many, many Marvel events before it.

That I can't really speculate on.  I admit, despite my previous sarcasm they do have me in - hook, line, and sinker.  I, like many I'm sure, are very curious to see how this will be done.  Am I going to be surprised if it's terrible? Nope.  Will I enjoy it if it is?  ...well, yeah. I'll be surprised, but yeah.

To be truthful, all I've been reading of late has been Amazing Spider-Man (a tip of the hat to Mr. Slott for a thoroughly enjoyable return of the character thus far), Scarlet Spiders, and Nova and while I know at least the first title will be involved in it, not entirely sure about the others - though I sincerely hope that the adventures of Sam Alexander will continue.  Really, been very much enjoying that.

Of course, I speak of this event as though it were just another crossover when Marvel has gone out of its way to say that this is how the Marvel universe will be from now until the end of time.  Axel Alonso himself said so.  My response?

"Sure, until you retcon it."

Marvel's "Secret Wars" will begin publishing in May of 2015.

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.

MadCap's Game Reviews - "The Oregon Trail Deluxe"

Oh, hell, I remember this game.  While it's not the original, it was also released online with a bunch of other old MS-DOS computer games from the long, long ago time of the late 1980s and early 1990s (including the original), and it was actually the first incarnation of The Oregon Trail that I ever played on school computers back when I was but a wee little Madcap.  But what is the Oregon Trail, you may ask? What exactly was the event that inspired Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium to release a game that, to date, has had as many incarnation as everyone's twin-hearted hero in a big blue box?

Well, get yourself a three-ring binder and some loose leaf, because Madcap's gonna take you back to school!

...quit your griping, you gotta learn something.

A quick search of the internet (and, by internet, I mean I checked the Wikipedia page), I learned that the route that starts in Missouri (which loves company) and heads out west was actually first and most commonly used by the mountain men of the 1830s who were heavily into the fur trade and sought streams where beavers would be plentiful. However, forget about that because it has little to nothing to do with what it became which was a route West in order to seek gold and other opportunities in the golden land of Aquilonia...I mean, California. After James Marshall found gold and the California Gold Rush was sparked, a mass exodus occurred as many a folk were closing up their shops, packing up their families, and leaving their homes to go to the new Land of Opportunity.

And, as this game demonstrates, many of them died in gory, horrendous, and painful ways without ever making it to their destinations.

The game sees the player dropped into 1848, at the height of the prominence of the Trail. Starting from the town of Independence, Missouri, the player must buy supplies and travel out with four other individuals to California. On the way, you'll face the dangers of the open road in the 1840s. These include, but are not limited to: cholera, dysentery, having your wagon being set on fire, having your oxen wander off, having your oxen die, drowning in a river, losing all your supplies in a river, snakebites, having someone steal things out of your wagon, being caught in a blizzard if you leave too early in the year, being caught in a blizzard if you leave too late in the year, and much, much more.

And here's the worst part: there's nothing you can do about it.

Picture being a child, about seven or eight years old sitting in a computer lab at your school and then suddenly a message pops up smack in the middle of the interface that tells you that someone in your group has died, with the image of some individuals mourning over a fresh grave while the funeral march blares at you through the speakers - with literally all the subtlety of a nine millimeter round through the skull.

Y'know, forget Dark Souls.  You wanna be a man? You wanna show that you've got a giant ballsack to make Chuck Norris look like his is like a prepubescent boy's who was in the pool too long? You get through The Oregon Trail as a teacher and then you come to me with your testosterone-filled BS. You think taking on Gwyn, Lord of Cinders makes you a man? You go tangle with one person with dysentery, one person with cholera, and another person with a broken arm while you've got the elements themselves coming to wreck your day while you're running low on food, you have one ox left, and you're not even halfway through your journey. Until then? You are no man!

I cannot stress enough how completely distraught this made me when I was a kid, horrified as I watched person after person from my group die off before I'd even made it a quarter of the way through the game. The game will randomly bring up ailments for people in the party, including your character, such as disease and limb breakage. In adverse conditions, very few of which you can actually control, characters will die quickly if they're crippled or diseased. The deaths seem to come just as much at random as the diseases that precede them and it cultivates a sense of dread and hopelessness as you watch people who were in your group die off one by one.

Oh, and if you die, it's an automatic game over.

And again, you have no control over when these things happen and if you either get cured or die. The game chooses, and is plenty happy to rub it in your face. Perhaps this was the attempt by the gamemakers to make the player feel but a fraction of the horror that the pioneers heading out to the West felt, and I'd have to say they managed that masterfully. Considering the state of the world back then, lack of medicinal knowledge and the elements along meant these people had some serious testicular fortitude in even attempting this.

Speaking of medicinal knowledge, the player has a choice of professions that they had before travelling out West, each of which affords the player a bonus of some kind. Bankers start out with an insane amount of money, blacksmiths have a better chance of their wagon not breaking down and being able to repair it more efficiently if they do. Then you have professions such as Teacher, which awards no perks at the beginning but greatly increases the number of multipliers the player gets to their score upon reaching Willamette Valley in Oregon...provided that you ever actually do.  The best strategy I've worked out is to pick Doctor, so your people have a better chance of staying alive and in decent health until the end. But, again, the game will still more than occasionally just shove one up hard and you just have to take it.

The interface remains the same throughout the game, a picture that takes up about a fourth of the screen showing the towns and forts you visit along the way as most of the time you'll see your little wagon making it's way forever from the right side of that screen to the left.  A click of a button can see you trade and talk with fellow wagoneers, rest (a crucial tactic in completely wasting time...and fighting off occasional bits of exhaustion), checking your group's status, controlling how much everyone eats, setting the pace of your trip (which can have adverse conditions on everyone's health), and buying things at forts.

Also a map that you'll never use. Even when the group "loses the trail", just wait a bit and the game will put you right back on it.

Also a guide book, which you'll also never use.

The name of the game is continuing to move, keeping your people alive, and making sure you don't run out of food, especially if you start too early and get pummeled with blizzards. You may not go full Donner Party on one another...mostly because you'll be dead long before that becomes a problem. Out on the road, your best - and, indeed, only - option for food is hunting, which brings you into a nice little mini-game. You're shown a field and can switch to several different viewpoints in the area, eight in total, From there, it becomes pretty much as simple as point and click to kill any animals that come into your path. The further they are away from your position, however, the more I would advise aim your shot for where your target is going to be instead of where they are.

Your options for game are fairly simplistic - squirrels, rabbits, deer, bears, and buffalo. The bears and buffalo are the slowest moving, and yield the most meat. Once you figure that out, you naturally go for that and take them out as soon as you see them and not even bother going for the faster-moving rodents. Unfortunately, the game only lets you take back about two hundred pounds and won't let you hold more than two thousand points in the wagon at a time. Also, don't spam hunting in the areas where you can, because eventually the game will warn you that if you keep doing so, food will be scarce. If it tells you that after your first hunt, move on for a bit and then try again.

And that's really all there is to it. Don't die, keep moving West, and remember to eat. It's brain dead simplistic, and really only takes about twenty to thirty minutes to play through, provided you don't die.  So why has it endured for as long as it has? And in so many incarnations? Honestly, I think it's because it's addicting as all get out. I question it's use as an educational tool, mostly because what I knew about the era I knew from history class and didn't really learn anything new from playing it (like I said, you're never going to use the guide book).

In the end, though, the Oregon Trail was meant to teach the little children about life back in that time, and the execution of one of the greatest undertakings in American history. And it did that.  This game in particular taught my generation that everything in the 1840s was trying to kill you if you left home. That's probably why there are so many of us locked up in our homes typing out rants about video games on the internet.

The Oregon Trail Deluxe comes to us from MECC, and has various incarnations available on Android, Apple II, iOS, Macintosh, BlackBerry, Commodore 64, DOS, Facebook, Java ME, Nintendo DSi, Nintendo 3DS, Wii, Windows, Mobile, and Phone 7.

If you'd like to recreate your own traumatizing childhood memories, or you just want to see what all the fuss was about, click here.

MadCap's Reel Thoughts - "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" (1982) vs. "Star Trek Into Darkness" (2013)

Everyone knows of it, even if they've never seen the show.  It's a hallmark of the science fiction genre.  Like Star Wars, it's a benchmark for how the genre should be done. From Gene Roddenberry's original pitch of a "wagon train to the stars", a space age-style looking glass through which the human condition could be viewed through so that we might both be entertained and perhaps learn something about ourselves.  A noble prospect if ever there was one.  Needless to say, if you're never watched one of the several TV series or the movies, you still know what you're getting into with Star Trek.

The series has run non-continuously since 1966, telling the story of a future in which Earth had joined with several other alien races into a "United Federation of Planets", dedicated to spreading their utopian society across the galaxy.  Humans, for once, were not conquerers or soldiers but diplomats, explorers, their mission to "seek out new life and new civilizations" and "to boldly go where no man has gone before." And the series, while moving ever forwards for five series and then far into the past for a sixth, has pretty much stayed within the same continuity.

That all changed in 2009 when JJ Abrams (the most polarizing man involved in Trek since Rick Berman) took over the franchise for a reboot.  But unlike many Hollywood reboots, this did not completely disregard the forty plus years of work that went into the franchise before. Instead, he skewed the entire thing into an alternate timeline.  While most do not appreciate this, I honestly thought it a stroke of genius, something by which new and different stories could be told using the characters that we know and love.  While it didn't disregard the past, it also wasn't hung up on it either.

...no, he saved that for Star Trek Into Darkness.

Oh, boy did he save that for Star Trek Into Darkness.

And no, before someone gets into it that yet another person on the internet is blogging about how much this movie sucks, I'll go ahead and say that it doesn't.  Star Trek Into Darkness is definitely not even close to one of the worst Trek movies.  It's certainly better than any of the Next Generation films outside of First Contact.  However, Into Darkness has a major problem that those films don't have.  JJ Abrams had said before that he was going to make a film that totally wasn't anything like The Wrath of Khan.  And he didn't...

He made a film that has all of the flash with none of the substance of The Wrath of Khan.  I think the best place to start with this would most likely be with the main casts.

Main Cast
Headed by Captain Kirk, seconded by the ever logical Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy), Doctor Leonard "Bones" McCoy (DeForrest Kelly), Engineer James Montgomery "Scotty" Scott (James Doohan) Lieutenant Nyota Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu (George Takei), and Ensign Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig) they were a group whose names and deeds were to be known throughout the galaxy - the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise.  These actors and the characters they portrayed for literally decades, and that makes them very, very tough acts to follow...

...but that isn't exactly to say that everyone was exactly a prize during the Original Series run.  And I'll just come out and say it, especially in comparison to later Trek series...the original just isn't that good.  I know I'm going to be stoned to death for that, but it really just isn't.  The acting, even among the main cast is chock full of ham, some of the plots make absolutely no sense, and the special effects - even for the time - were often laughable at best.  But the fact is that it's almost unarguably the incarnation that is best remembered by pop culture, and so my point still stands that they will all be very tough acts to follow...

So I'm going to go ahead and get it out of the way - James Kirk, played by Chris Pine.  I see the devilish rake of a man that Kirk was in his youth, which makes sense because he's so young.  However, and this is a problem in the first film as well, I don't really see the hero he's supposed to be. He's not the experienced commander we've seen on the television show. He's a twenty-something that happened to get immensely lucky because he knew how to manipulate the system...and had help from his best friend from an alternate timeline. While he does have moments where he shows shades of Shatner's Kirk, he never really seems to fully embrace the role, instead playing only the shallowest bits of it.  Shatner's Kirk defied orders when he felt it was the right thing to do, not because of some preconceived notions of challenging authority "because it's totally wrong, brah!"

But then everything in this universe is different because Kirk wasn't born in Iowa, so what do I know?

Then, of course, there's the pragmatic and logical Mr. Spock.  I have nothing but good things to say about Zachary Quinto's performance.  After all, he was handpicked by Leonard Nimoy to succeed him in the role of Spock...which he also played in the 2009 and 2013 films.  I wish I could say the same for the writing...which I can't.  Spock in the reboot films - especially Into Darkness - comes off as being less about logic and more about being an asshole.  There's following procedure and then there's using the rules as a weapon to smack down the fool who took your command, which is what he does relatively early in the film.  Not that I would expect Spock to be overly grateful, but I imagine he wouldn't be included to throw his "best friend" under the bus after he saved his life.

So yes, New Spock is an asshole.

Then there's Bones, Dr. Leonard McCoy as played by Karl Urban, another actor that I have nothing but good things to say about in this movie.  It's a shame they give him nothing to do besides being response for what may be the stupidest deus ex machima I've ever seen in a movie.  But as that's not a statement against him or his performance, I'll just sum up his bit by saying that I think he makes a very good Bones.  DeForrest Kelly would be proud.

And now we come to Uhura, as played by Zoe Saldana. You might remember her as being from the greatest science fiction movie of the past few years...oh, and Avatar. Shame that she was better in both of those than she was in the 2009 film or in Into Darkness, but again it's an issue with the writing.  Not as though Uhura was given an overabundance of importance upon the original Enterprise, but the Abrams films don't really do anything with her.  And when they do, it really makes no sense.  For example, in Into Darkness, she knows Klingon.  Fluently.  And anyone who has seen the original films, particularly Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, knows that Uhura didn't fluently know Klingon at the end of her career, because she had to read from a translation book.

This is another thing I'm going to throw in the "Kirk Wasn't Born In Iowa" bucket, because it's the only way that any of it makes sense.  But giving someone abilities out of nowhere does not a character make and before someone points out that the 2009 film did have that line about how skilled she was in xenolinguistics, I'll point out that Uhura in the original timeline was exactly the same and still had to use a reference book to know Klingon.  So, no, that is not a point in it's favor.

Then you have Scotty (Simon Pegg), Chekov (Anton Yelchin), and Sulu (John Cho).  And if you're wondering why I'm not giving each a paragraph, there's a simple reason - none of them are individually given anything of note to do.  Basically, unless you're Kirk or Spock in these movies, you're hardly of note.  Scotty does single-handedly save the Enterprise late in the film and Sulu does have a moment that shows more shades of Takei's take on the character than Pine ever does of Shatner's, but that's really it and there's nothing further from either instance.  Chekov is there to be the funny accent guy who gets slapped around like a rubber ball by Kirk when he's feeling capricious.

And don't get me wrong, I understand that Kirk and Spock are the two leads, but you never really got the feeling in the original show and films that they were any more important than the rest of the crew. Kirk in the originals would have given his life to save any one of the crew, something with they attempt to do with Pine, but it falls flat.  Though Into Darkness is the first time he gets to see the consequences of his less than well thought out actions, nothing ever comes of it, and he never seems to learn anything. Squirrel that thought away for a bit.

But what does this all come down to? Plainly, the group in the first film that was doing something revolutionary and different...is now trying to settle back into the old skins of the original and either overcompensating...or undercompensating in most cases.  Thus, a point goes to the original.

Oh, and you're probably wondering why I didn't mention Carol Marcus (Alice Eve)? She's fanservice. Like Uhura, they attempt to give her something more...but it's got all the shallowness of a drainage ditch.

Khan
The second thing I have to go ahead and get out of the way, because of the similarities, is who played the better Khan Noonien Singh.

In this corner the classic Khan, a Spanish man pretending to be an Indian, the late Ricardo Montalban. A veteran actor before he ever stepped into the role of Khan way back in 1967.  In-universe, Khan was a genetically augmented human. During the 1990s, he was one of the overlords ruling the planet Earth, but was forced to escape in a ship known as the Botany Bay when his reign was threatened, intended to be woken from cryogenic status on a new world where he could once more rule.

Which is also the backstory of Khan as played by Benedict Cumberbatch in Into Darkness, so that saves me a bit of trouble.

When he was first encountered in the Original Series episode "Space Seed", Khan attempted to take over the Enterprise and begin an intergalactic conquest.  Thanks to the valiant crew under Captain Kirk, however, he was stopped and exiled to the planet Ceti Alpha V to live out the rest of his days with a brand new world, devoid of all other human life, to conquer with his people.  Mr. Spock even theorized what Ceti Alpha V might be like, given a century of development.

Unluckily for them, they don't have to find out.  Wrath of Khan is about fifteen years later, Ceti Alpha V was lain waste by the explosion of Ceti Alpha VI. With his wife dead, most of his people gone, when Khan gets his hands on a spaceship he has a Roaring Rampage of Revenge in mind that will see James T. Kirk dead.  Got all that?

Good. Because it has absolutely nothing to do with Khan's motivations in Into Darkness.

In that, we go back to more of how he was in "Space Seed", with Khan being woken in this universe by Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller) in order to design and build weapons for the Federation following the big battle against Nero in the 2009 film. He doesn't know Kirk, he has no reason to go after Kirk, or anyone else besides Marcus...who he kills late in the film.  This is a guy who was screwed over by a warmonging psychopath and wants to save his family, who are being held hostage thanks to said psychopath.  So, that definitely makes this Khan more sympathetic.

And to give Cumberbatch his due credit, I do see the savage more in his performance than I do in Montalban's.  The classic Khan appears as a gentleman on the surface with heavy ego and barbarism not far below it, but is always measured and tactical.  In Into Darkness, Khan's superior. He's better than you, he knows it, and he doesn't even bother to look down on you because even that is beneath him. He manages to turn the tables on his captor and go back to what he was genetically modified to do, conquer.

So, he's a far more direct version of Khan than Montalban's, but you do see more of a Genghis Khan than an Alexander the Great.  You see the savage, not the calculating tactician...which sadly kind of dumbs it down.  And that's a shame, because Cumberbatch gives an excellent performance. But, in the end, by being more like Khan should be, we get a character who is ironically the inferior version. Besides the motivation to save his family, there's no reason for Khan to even be here. You could replace the seventy-two torpedo tubes holding Augments with seventy-two scantily clad women and Harcourt Mudd and it would pretty much be the same.

...okay, that's not fair. Replace him with Garth of Izar.

No better is the lack of weight to Khan being around highlighted than in Into Darkness when his identity as John Harrison is seen through and he reveals himself...and nobody reacts any differently because of it. One of my favorite scenes in Wrath of Khan is, after the Reliant decimates the Enterprise and Khan hails the Enterprise to discuss terms of surrender...and the screen coming on to reveal Khan, standing triumphant on the bridge of the Reliant and you can see and hear the fear in Kirk's eyes and voice as he realizes just how screwed he is (yes, I'm praising a Shatner performance, I don't believe it either).

The fact is that Khan's story of revenge in Wrath is just more compelling. He has reason to be there, there's actual tension in scenes as he does all he can to destroy Kirk, caring nothing for the lives of his crew or even his own life in the attempt - up to destroying his own ship just to see that Kirk gets killed. He hits Kirk where it hurts, pulls no punches, and is determined to do "far worse than kill" him. Khan in Into Darkness? He's there for fanservice, which is a shame as Cumberbatch puts in a hell of a performance.

Nevertheless, Montalban is, after much deliberation, the superior Khan.

Themes
And now, the themes.  Wrath of Khan actually has a couple, namely the aforementioned revenge as well as life and death. Since we've already touched upon it, let's look at revenge.  By the time of Wrath of Khan, Khan has been marooned on Ceti Alpha V for fifteen years. Thanks to the destruction of the neighboring Ceti Alpha VI, the planet is nearly devoid of life and that which remains has killed all but a handful of the seventy-two people he was set there with by Kirk and the rest. His wife has died, and he's a bitter and angry man who wants nothing more than a chance to avenge himself upon Kirk.  Even his original thoughts of conquest - something which, again, he was genetically augmented to do - are tossed aside simply for his desire to see James T. Kirk dead. This is subtly referenced in the set design with a copy of Moby Dick - in addition to other novels - being seen within Khan's shelter early in the movie.

Into Darkness has a theme of family, as demonstrated in Khan's determination to save his family from Robocop...and how he later kills him, which traumatizes his daughter Carol Marcus who is later inducted into the cult of James T. Kirk after having virtually no time to grieve over her dead father.

...umm...ouch?

Wrath of Khan has the secondary theme of life and death, particularly for Kirk. In the beginning, we get introduced to the Kobayashi Maru test as Lieutenant Saavik (Kristie Alley) takes it. It's a test of character more than anything, with the simulation being a no-win scenario...which Kirk having been the only one to have ever actually won it by reprogramming the test so it was possible to rescue the titular ship. While this is turned into a joke in the 2009 film, with Pine's Kirk coming off as a complete asshole who we're supposed to like because he's the main character, in Wrath of Khan it's Kirk's desire to never say die (yes, Kirk's a Goonie). That belief that he can save everyone, that there is no cost because it'll never have to addressed.

Mind you, death comes up quite a few times in the Original Series...including Kirk's own brother...but as your average moviegoer isn't going to know that not-oft remembered bit of minutia, I'll let that go.

Basically, Kirk feels older, but even at this point is confident that he'll never lose and never have to say goodbye to any of his loved ones.

...which is why when Khan decimates his crew and then, to top it off, Spock dies, it's all the more devastating. People die, but life goes on. Kirk learns this, and he learns to never forget his best friend...who he later goes and effectively resurrects in the next movie (getting to that). Now, back when I was talking about the main cast, you might remember the passing mention I had about Kirk in the reboot. What does Kirk learn in the reboot?

Absolutely nothing.

And that's a problem. Because in the end, Kirk is still the same jackass that he was in beginning of Into Darkness.  Again, they try to have moments where it seems like Kirk cares, but there's no weight to it at all. Ultimately, he doesn't care about anyone outside of his main crew, even though Khan kills scores of them - and all because he trusted the crazed conquering psychopath to not be a crazed conquering psychopath! Which is part of the reason why I don't care for Chris Pine's portrayal of Kirk beyond the fact that he just hasn't had time to develop the character beyond two films.

Then again, the film is also written and produced by two of the guys responsible for two of the four the Transformers movies - one of who hilariously claims that Into Darkness has more social commentary than Raiders of the Lost Ark - which really puts a big piece of the puzzle into your lap when you look into it more. Like the Transformers films, all flash and no substance. Because modern audiences don't want to actually think about anything, they just want their happy endings, no problem. And the main reason I know this, beyond the depth of a drainage ditch that I've spoken of beforehand, is the way that Kirk is resurrected at the end of Into Darkness...

Khan's "superblood", a much rightfully maligned plot device introduced relatively late in the film in a very anvilicious manner that ended up saving the day. It's completely ridiculous all on it's own, but when you also bring it up while stacking it up against Wrath of Khan, it becomes almost offensive in how much of a complete inversion it is of the themes of life and death seen in that movie.  Spock wasn't magically brought back to life by some stupid magic potion in a universe whereas before Gene Roddenberry would have dismissed it as nonsensical sorcery. And this guy, I remind you, is the guy who decided that Kirk could defeat computers by talking to them...four times.

Consider also, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, where Spock was resurrected, but it took an entire movie to get there, with it's own trials and tribulations.  Here...McCoy just injects Kirk with magical superblood, and all is well.  Yay! There's no build up, no cost to it. Kirk's back, because we can't very well help the audience to learn anything.  "How we deal with death is just as important as how we deal with life"? Bullshit! Let's do some explosions and only scrape at the surface of what Gene Roddenberry set out to do!

Summing Up
The writers, the producers...they didn't try. I'm not even getting into how stupid it is that they've basically rendered space travel completely pointless with the device that Khan uses to jump from Earth to Qo'noS that's about the size of a boombox - which completely destroys all of the exploration and discovery that the original and later series were known for.  Khan's blood being used to bring Kirk back from the dead is just a complete lack of actual thought and caring.

Everything in Into Darkness could have been made to work, and even without directly copying from Wrath of Khan. But where the first reboot was at least an attempt to do something different, something bold with the potential to explore new possibilities, all Into Darkness was was taking the easy way out.  It was either a lack of caring, or responding to the backlash from the diehard fans of the original series and films and then not caring.

Instead, they took the easy route.  They took the tiniest parts of what made Wrath of Khan great to try and desperately appeal to the fans who felt betrayed, threw together what would appeal to the lowest common denominator without actually trying, and presented it to everyone as though it were a golden goose egg and instead you gave us a pile of fingernail clippings and expected us to be impressed.

 Well, I'm not. And it should surprise no one that Wrath of Khan, without a doubt in my mind, is the superior film. While Into Darkness does have some good things to it's credit, it's not enough to stand on it's own as a good Star Trek film and it completely crumbles when you put it up against the film that JJ Abrams insisted he wasn't going to make and then made anyway but very, very poorly.

If you're going to rip it off, rip it off well. You can't just take just the lettuce and tomato from a BLT to make the perfect BLT.  You have to bring the bacon. You didn't bring the bacon, you brought the turkey cold cuts.

Nobody likes the turkey cold cuts, Mr. Abrams. Nobody.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek Into Darkness are now available from Paramount Pictures on DVD and Netflix Instant Streaming.

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.

MadCap's Game Reviews - "Dragon Age: Inquisition"

Well, you know what time it is...the Inquisition! Let's begin!

We're not on a mission to convert the Jews (Jew, Jew, Jew, Jew. Jew, Jews) this time, but we are called back to Thedas this time at a time of great change in the landscape of that world, spiraling off from the beginning of the Mage-Templar War in Dragon Age II. Now it's a year or so later and the war has gotten nowhere fast, so the Divine (for the uninitiated, the Pope) of the Chantry calls a conclave to try and work out a peaceful solution.

Then somebody blows it up, killing everyone except for the Player Character.

Well, so much for peace in our time...

But wait! The Player Character survived by being thrown through a rift from the Fade, has a strange mark upon his or her hand that seems to react to a massive Breach that has opened up in the sky, and has no real memory of what happened in the explosion.  As a result of this, Cassandra Pentaghast declares the Inquisition of old reopened and thus we have our title and plot all nicely brought up. As the Inquisitor, the Player Character must discover who really caused the explosion at the Conclave, stop them, and then find the way to seal the Fade Rifts that are opening all across Thedas.

Unlike DA 2, Inquisition actually goes back to being able to select from the three main races of the Dragon Age universe - human, elf, or dwarf  - along with adding Qunari to the mix. They all have their own unique quirks to help with stats, such as Qunari having a higher resistance to physical damage because of their size. The classes are, as they always were, back to the original Warrior, Rogue, and Mage, though the former two classes have been split up into two sub-classes. Warrior is split into One-Handed and Two-Handed at creation, as is Rogue into the two bladed melee and the archery.  Why? Especially since, afterwards, you can very easily just level up the other skill tree as well in either case?

Oh, and a minor side note before I go on - the Dragon Age Keep.  Bioware, EA, what exactly was keeping you guys from just taking the saves from Origins and II off of my harddrive.  I worked really rather hard on those to get my own personal canon together...and then you just give us the Dragon Age Keep as the only option.  And while it's nice to just be able to pick and choose the things that happened in those games so that my game goes out almost identically, I don't really feel like I earned it when I can do that.  I worked hard to play through those games to make the choices I wanted...and then you do that. It's just a little cheap, is all I'm saying.

Also, I can customize Hawke but not the Warden? C'mon.

But swinging back into the classes and how they work, I went with a warrior just to test the waters and see how everything worked. I remember reading that the combat would be more involving and be more tailored towards strategy...which is why I went through almost the entire game barreling into my opponents with all the grace and pre-planning of a kamikaze pilot and came through alright nine times out of ten. On the rare occasions where I didn't, it was because of a need to upgrade the armor and/or weapons of my team.

There is an option to go into an overhead tactical mode which, while interesting, really isn't all that necessary.  The only real strategy you need is to not go out with a team of under-equipped mages and nothing else and you're fine.  It goes back to the old school Dungeons & Dragons instincts - all about that party balance.  I went through most of the game with two tanks (myself and Cassandra), a mage (Solas), and a rogue at range (Varric or Sera, depending on my mood) and - as I said - I did just fine with little trouble. So, engaging? Definitely, yes. As for all about the tactics? Not really.

Now there is some difficulty in the Health department, namely that characters don't go back to full health after every fight like in the previous games, and only a certain amount of health potions can be carried at a time.  Also, tellingly of this mechanic, both Blood Magic and a Healing skill tree are not granted to a mage Inquisitor, or indeed any other character so inclined in class. This creates artificial difficulty, not actual difficulty, because it's not difficult trotting your way across the landscape (or, fast travelling) to go back to a camp to refill your supplies. It's just really time consuming. On my one save file, I've put in a little over fifty hours as of now, and I'm pretty sure at least ten of those were galloping my way back to the nearest camp to do so (and yes, fast travel is available, but I don't care for it).

Speaking of galloping, mounts are available for the first time in Dragon Age history, and they're pretty cool all things considered. Like in Skyrim, they help traverse terrain that is otherwise un-traverse-able on foot, though they sadly don't give the middle finger to physics that the equestrians of Tamriel can. They allow quick movement across the landscapes that otherwise would take a really, really long time to get across on foot. The downside, alas, is that you miss out on party banter if you do this, which has always been one of Bioware's strong suites with the writing and definitely does shine through here when you do give it a listen.

However, especially starting out, you'll have to give it a miss because the areas are literally just that massive.  Jon Perry, the cinematic designer, was quoted as saying that one level of Inquisition was as big as all the areas in II, and I believe him. These levels are huge, and they legitimately do try to avoid the trap in the previous game of reusing environments, so definitely an A for effort for that.  When it gets to the point that your characters are referencing that everything looks the same, as they did in II, you know it's time to fix that, and that they did.

Fixing puts me in mind of the crafting mechanics. Those who've read my Dragon Age: Origins review will know that I gave much grief over the traps, which I considered some of the most useless things I'd ever seen to clutter my inventory. Origins had you gallivanting around Ferelden seeking the means by which to raise an army to fight the Archdemon.  You have no areas to control - in fact, in thinking about it again I could only come up with one instance where one might effectively use traps in the entire game -  and thus will be running into or disarming traps, rather than setting them for enemies. I had feared they were going to try and force this back into the series when it quite thankfully went missing in II.

My fears, it seems, were unnecessary, as the crafting is just weapons and armor and it's actually pretty good.  You can find schematics all throughout the world and bring them back to the fortress of Skyhold, home base of the Inquisition, where you can make your tools of war out of various materials you can collect out in the world and through missions from the war table.

Oh, I haven't mentioned the war table? How did I get eleven paragraphs in without mentioning what is certainly a vital part of Inquisition? Oh, right. Because it's rather pointless. To give it it's due credit, it does give you the feeling of being an actual military commander, and there is enough that you do on your own to make it still feel like an adventure, but in the end you're delegating. Which looks good on paper, but everything looks good on paper (at least the nice marble stock) and in practice it has the added problem of being rather boring.  Reading the flavor text for some of them, you get the strange feeling that there's really awesome stuff out there in the world that you could be doing.  While that is balanced with the world-ending quest, it is a bit of a disappointment.

That being said, there is a little variety in how you can handle missions.  Leliana, Cullen, and new character Josephine have command over the espionage, military, and diplomatic arms of the Inquisition and will move depending on your instructions. This usually results in the same result for the bigger missions, and maybe a different item or a larger or smaller amount of influence gained depending on the approach. As far as I've been able to tell, there seems to be little to no consequence to what you pick, though certain options aren't available for certain missions. With said influence gained, you work your way up to getting Inquisition Perks, which allow you a multitude of tasty...well, perks...such as 10% more gold when selling to merchants or getting new dialogue options concerning various bits of lore.

Oh, and the dialogue wheel from DA II is back. Unlike there, the options aren't strictly Diplomatic/Sarcastic/Aggressive unless it tells you so. And there is more variety to allow you to develop a character that's more than just one personality type for every situation, which helps to make you more believable. No offense to Alyssa Hawke, the snarky rogue who treated almost everything with great wit and charm, but Hawke in any of the personality types didn't seem like they were all there when it came to interactions. One wouldn't react to, say, being punched in the nose the same way they would react to being told by their significant other that they loved them.

All this talk of DA II puts me in mind of the main Bad Guy.  I'll avoid spoilers, but I am going to chide Bioware a little for their choice in this. Needless to say, this character doesn't show up in either of the previous games unless you happened to have played the one of the DLCs for II, so anyone who hasn't played that one you're going to have no idea who it is and be really, really confused. And while I'm sure that was what they were going for giving the character their own DLC, but anyone who hasn't played it is going to be out in the cold.  Needless to say, the threat they pose is bad enough, but the big reveal cutscene that Bioware has doesn't really hold as much weight otherwise.

...no, it's not Tallis, you morons!

All my gripes considered, however, I will say this was a valiant effort by Bioware.  I've made the joke that while Valve can't count to three, at least that's better than EA, who shouldn't even make the attempt.  In this particular instance, I'll withdraw that.  It might be just because it's far better than II was - cultivating a sense of urgency that doesn't make you feel as though you're just running around doing nothing until the plot actually shows up, and arguably having higher stakes than even Origins - and I've said before and will again that I'm willing to suffer through almost anything if the story is good, which it definitely is here. And, like the previous games, this one leaves me excited for the future of the franchise - particularly with the epilogue that arguably changes things even more than the gigantic world-eating hole in the sky and the post-credits scene - and whenever it's once more time to head into the world of Thedas, I am more than ready.

Dragon Age: Inquisition is now available from Bioware and Electronic Arts for PC, Playstation 3, Playstation 4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.

MadCap's Game Reviews - "The Best Games of 2014"

Well, now that we've gotten the alcohol right out of our systems and have brought out the funk, here we are in the year 2015.  While I practice writing 2015 so that I don't screw up when I write checks, have a look at the best games I played in the year 2014. Remember, like the "Worst" list, these aren't games that necessarily came out in 2014, just the ones that I reviewed. I think, given that, there's no better place to start than...

10. Halo: Combat Evolved

The review in question
Ah, the long, long ago time when the Halo series was pure and sweet and innocent...before Microsoft milked the cash cow dry. But by now the bones have crumbled into dust and now they use said dust to try and make more of it, though the fact is that the cow is gone, gone, gone...and no matter how sweet that milk was, we'll never be tasting it again in this franchise.

As you can tell, I have a very negative opinion on where the series has gone.

But we're here to talk about where it started, and where it started is good. The first game is a massive Aliens rip-off, but with just the two protagonists and a second race of aliens thrown in later in the game.  It revitalized the shooter genre, starting a trend of actually having a story with the "shoot everything in sight" that many shooters were known for...regardless of how good the story was or how well it was executed.  But again, starting out, it's you against the aliens with a single twist later...and I really can't complain about that. I do admit to a certain nostalgia about the game from childhood, which I probably why this ranks at all on this list.

9. Doom

The review in question
It's one of the first FPSes that ever was, for better or for worse. There's a plot to it, yes, but it basically is a demon-killing power fantasy. After all, who hasn't had a chuckle at the mental image of running straight up to a big, nasty demon and punching it right in the face?

...

...you people need to play more Dungeons & Dragons.

8. Devil May Cry 3

The review in question
When I was given the Devil May Cry HD Collection for the Xbox 360, my friend told me straight away to just go to this game. After playing it, I understood why. This game is an absolutel masterpiece. Okay, the story isn't perfect, but it's Capcom - to quote Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation, "Capcom makes stories like tumble driers make potato salad". But the fact is that the combat is excellent, the aesthetics are great, the camera's not fixed all the time, and Dante himself just carries the stable with his wit, charm, and frank awesomeness. This is the text book example of how Dante should be. Hell, this is a text book example of how a Devil May Cry game should be. Period.

7. Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark

The review in question
My first review of 2014, and with good reason...2013 had ended and I hadn't finished my retrospective on Neverwinter Nights.  But don't let that fool you, this is awesome. I don't hold up the vanilla game in the same regard because, well, it's not on the same level.  Sure, the vanilla game is arguably longer with four acts as opposed to Hordes's three chapters, the base game is a standard campaign whereas this one is definitely a campaign ender. You start at level 15, and go from there well into the thirties (or at least that's where I was by the end)...and into becoming a damn near Physical God on the surface of Faerun.

That's right, by the end of this, you're able to take on an archdevil from the lowest of the Hells in combat. And, again, it's pretty awesome, if a little frustrating. Or you could just got the direct approach and learn the True Name to either bind the devil to your service or force him to kill himself.

Now you're playing with power.

And it's just a good example of leveling and getting stronger in that traditional D&D fashion. You're not a rookie adventurer sent out to kill rats in someone's basement by this point, you're a seasoned veteran heading up to the next big challenge. And when you're coming up on level 20, what's the biggest challenge you can face? Hordes of the Underdark answers that, and it answers it pretty damn well.

6. Blood of the Werewolf

The review in question
A game that scratched my horror itch in the best way. Mind you, I don't always have a horror itch, but when I do, it's games like Blood of the Werewolf that I get a satisfying scratching from.  Scientifically Proven made a game that, while being a homage to several other facets of the horror genre - games and movies in particular - stands as it's own unique thing.  Selena is no fragile princess to be rescued in another castle, she's a badass mother (no, literally, she's badass and a mother) going to save her child from the evil Doctor Frankenstein.

And in some situations where a female protagonist would be subject to poor writing or characterization, we don't get that here. She's tragic, she's determined, and that's really very beautifully done in a way that doesn't seem cheesy or overcompensating. We want to root for her, we want to see her succeed and save her child, the last bit of her family that she has.  In that way, it's all the more satisfying to see her going all Mama Bear (or, in this case, Mama Wolf) on the bad guys.  The only reason this game isn't higher on the list is because of the pathological fear of insta-kill hydraulic ram shafts that it has instilled in me.

My therapist has been working with me...it's pretty bad...

Still, great game. No doubt about that.

5. Rad Raygun

The review in question
Knowing is half the battle. What's the other half? Killing those Commie motherfuckers with a laser gun! Or, at least, that's what Rad Raygun will have you believing by the time you finish playing it. Developed by Trufun Entertainment, it's a tongue-in-cheek look at the fervent anti-Communist and uber-Patriotic approach of the United States against the Russians, putting it into the context of an awesome Mega Man clone. With awesome throwback 8-bit music (by FantomenK!), it's short, but it's good. I look forward to the sequel!

...oh, the sequel's out? I'll have to look into that...

4. Pokemon X and Y

The review in question
My inner seven year old enjoyed this very much. So did the twenty-three year old version of myself. While X and Y do undoubtedly have their problems, there's so much to like and it's very clear that this is not the same series that Nintendo and Game Freak first came out with way back in 1996, for better or for worse.  You have a villain that's far more developed, Lysandre being a Big Bad with far more depth than one would expect from previous Pokemon games. Sure, his lackeys are a bunch of hipster wannabe douchebags, but Lysandre had an actual reason for doing what he did beyond the simple desires to make money or to rule the world that other villains in the series have had.

It wasn't just a few new 'Mons thrown in - in fact, X and Y have introduced the least number of the creatures to date - and the same story with different people thrown in.  While Black and White seemingly did this until were learned Ghesis just wanted to be the only one with Pokemon (because, logic), it was really these games that graduated the villains into homicidal maniac territory. While Lysandre doesn't seem that way - he honestly believes that destroying the entire world will save it - his plan and Team Flare's in general is actually a really refreshing concept for a series that has, up to this point (barring the Lavender Town Pokemon Tower in Generation I) only hinted at or shied away completely from death. Dare I say, adding a little more realism and real-world context to what had previously been a very naive and simplistic series.

3. DuckTales Remastered

The review in question
Woohoo!

And now that you have that stuck in your head, here's the number three choice, DuckTales Remastered. A refurbished and repurposed port of the original NES game that was mega hit back in the day, DuckTales has at last been brought into the 21st century, and it is pretty awesome. WayForward Technologies and Capcom brought back the feel of the game while also updating it for the present, making sprites in 2.5D instead of the 8-bit and bringing in the original cast to do the voices for dialogue.

And it has what may be one of the most badass weapons in gaming. You thought the Doom Guy with the BFG 9000 was bad? When Scrooge McDuck comes at you with the combination cane-pogo stick, you better get ready to run, suckers! That man will be happy to beat the gold coins and jewels right out of your still breathing body as he treks his way across the world (and even above it!). I said in my review that the game feels like an interactive episode of the show, and I still hold to that. And that is pretty awesome.

2. Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

The review in question

Rex Power Colt is a bad enough dude to rescue the President.  That's literally all you need to know.

1. Alien: Isolation

The review in question
This game would be good on it's own, but it's also good because it's the first Alien related game since Colonial Marines about in 2013, and it's effectively saved the franchise from that pile of trash. But even as I ponder why Randy Pitchford still has a job, I look at this game on it's own merits and see excellence around just about every corner.  The xenomorph is the top of the food chain and you get to learn that the hard way if you get cocky and try to take it out.  This isn't some shooter, and you're not a Colonial Marine. You're an engineer, and while Amanda Ripley is just as badass as her mother, she's still a squishy human and the Xenomorph is a few tons of death in a jet black, serpentine body. She has to use her wits, her ingenuity in crafting items for use, and a little bit of luck in order to defeat the alien and get off of the station alive.

The focus might be pulled a bit, thanks to the infamous Working Joes, but the menace of the alien does remain quite fresh and we're not regulated to long stretches of fighting nothing but faceless Weyland-Yutani Marines.  This is helped, too, by the environment of the space station that Amanda finds herself on while searching for the flight record of the Nostromo from the first movie. It's dark, claustrophobic, and chilling all on its own, not even getting into when you have to be watching and listening for the alien menace that seeks nothing more than to consume you for din-din.

It does run on a bit too long - in fact, it outright denies at least two logical places where one of the movies would have stopped - but it's a fun time, if a little frustrating at points, and fits well into the two Alien movies that actually matter without breaking series canon, and thus I put it up as my choice for the number one best game of 2014.

Agree with my choices? No? Tell me why I'm wrong in the comments.

Oh, and Happy New Year, everybody!

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.