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VoR Review: Dream of Mirror Online

DOMO (Dream of Mirror Online)
by Robin Prescott of VoR

Ok, so to start this, we got a request from one of our readers, asking us to take a look at DOMO, this MMORPGthing that honestly, I had never heard of. That I hadn’t heard of an MMO was already odd, but what was even odder was that Garrett (Yes, that Garrett) had already played the game a few months ago. Seriously. So, Garrett tried (vainly) to keep me from getting this review. He wanted it handed to Josh. Why? Well…

Oh my god, this game is cute. CUTE, I tell you! As in so cute your ears will bleed! And, to use Erin’s word, I “lurve” the cuteness. It even more cute than Phantasy Star Online and its Mags, which I loved. Garrett was trying to keep me away from it so he wouldn’t have to hear me squealing all the time at the cuteness, so Mitch said I could play it at his house, which was fine by me since I could play the game, visit the cats, and hang with Mitch, all at the same time! So, here’s the deal, I was going to write a review with the whole like “Day one” and “Day two” thing, but I really got sucked into the whole thing. I’m writing this on day five, so I guess you’ll just have to make due with that. :p

As much as I want to start with all the positives, I think I should get all the negative stuff out of the way. First, the UI is absolutely confusing. It took me a few hours to figure out just how to do simple things. It took me two days to figure out how to just take things off the freaking action bar. Also, it seems that the fonts on my game were really messed up. So messed up, in fact, that I could never actually read the last few lines of my missions, which really sucks because I happen to like reading. I like it a lot. Grrr.

Second, the controls suck. I mean, they really suck. Especially when you’re used to things like World of Warcraft and City of Heroes. The only way to turn left and right is to right click and move the mouse, which is frustrating because moving the mouse all the way across the screen only turns the character halfway, like, 90 degrees. So, just doing something simple like running around a corner becomes this marathon of clicking and mouse waving. On the plus side, I have started building my biceps because of it. Ooo, sexy!

None of that would be a big deal though, if I had some freaking way to change the controls and key bindings, or mouse sensitivity or something. I guess I could do it by asking Mitch to change his peripheral settings, but should we really have to do that just to make a game playable from the beginning?

Last thing on my list is bad animation. I know I said that the game is really cute, and it is. Even the bad animations are still cute, but some things seem like they need more work, like the running animations, combat animations, standing animations… Actually, I think most of it needs a little bit of work. Most of them are really kinda chunky, like the animation team was drunk at work. [Dear God, wouldn’t that be the life? –Ed.]

Even with that stuff though, the cuteness of the game really pulls it through. I mean, seriously, I am absolutely in LOVE with this game.
- Story line is something about a mirror
- My character is a swordswinging badass with fuzzy ears.
- A lot of people compared it to Final Fantasy, when it’s more like Guild Wars, because Guild Wars is free, but other than that, it doesn’t have too much similar to either one. Really, I think it’s closer to Animal Crossing.

Compared to Guild Wars, yeah, Guild Wars is probably the better game, but GW is also very… not cute. And GW has this big thing about killing, and death, and destruction, and fire, which is all very cool and stuff, but it’s not cute. And DOMO is CUTE.

Oh yeah, and it’s free.

VoR Review: Halo 3

Halo 3
by Robin Prescott of VoR

OH, THE HORROR
When Mitch told me this was the game I would be reviewing this week, I went through many different emotions. First, confusion. Why would he give this one to me, when Erin has been spending her paychecks buying all the Halo crap she can? She loves the series. Me, I’m lukewarm. Next, I felt elation. “Yay! Shiny new toy!” I thought. Third, I felt horror. Suddenly, all my memories of Halo 2 multiplayer came rushing back in one fell swoop, and I was scared. Dear God, please don’t let me be swallowed in a sea of prepubescent pissing contests.

To play this, I would need strength; a strength that one only gets by playing games incredibly late at night with noone around (except for the stuffed animals, of course) and a huge plate of snack foods. I curled up on the couch in the test room, whimpered softly and began my descent into the 3^rd circle of hell, which is reserved for egomaniacs, twitch gamers, college dropouts, and 13 year old boys (so far as I can tell).

DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE
On startup, things are fairly normal. We have a new remix of the Halo theme. This one stays in the background a little bit more than 2’s, which means no trying to sing along. (Awww.) The menu is a little bit confusing though. We have new options, Theatre and Forge,… I’ll get to those later. The big thing that I wanted to jump into was Co-op campaigns. I loved campaign on Halo 2, so hey, maybe I can finish the story and be done with this life-sucking trilogy. For this, I would need a partner to supplement my meager “Noob” skills, so I grabbed the most obvious choice. Erin. Slayer of Aliens, Humans, and anything that dares point a gun in her direction. Judging just from first look at the co-op menu, it looks like it might be possible to host a campaign on Xbox Live. I never actually tested it, but if we could, thumbs up Bungie.

The story started off strong, but as we played through, I realized I had no clue what was going on. I thought that the story in 3 was just a continuation of 2, but wow, I was wrong. Erin was constantly blabbing on and on about the story, trying to explain what was going on and why, but for the most part, I didn’t get it. So, I just tried to concentrate on the task at hand: Killing sh*t.

Which, as luck would have it, is quite easy. Even though I was rusty, and we were playing on Heroic (much to my dismay, but at the insistence of Erin) I still managed to keep up with a decent number of kills, so long as Erin stayed alive. See, in co-op as long as one player is alive, the other will respawn next to them if they’re out of battle for a few seconds. It keeps the battles going fairly quick. The system works kinda like co-op in Gears of War, but without having to find and touch the teammate. If both players die though,… well, you’ll have to sit through the loading screen, which is incredibly boring, and usually takes a bit.

EH, ITS HALO
For the most part though, there’s not really much new here. It’s still Halo. The graphics won’t make you have a heart attack, the sound isn’t terribly stunning, and the gameplay is incredibly repetitive. All of it comes together to make a great multiplayer game, but if you’re not that deep into multiplayer, like me, you’ll find it a little bit disappointing considering all the hype.

Once again, the settings of the campaign will have you alternating between “Oh my god! Its so pretty!” and “What the hell?” There’s lush jungles with unexplainable log formations, destroyed cities with pretty sunsets, and pus ridden innards of the Flood filled spaceships.

YES, THAT’S RIGHT. THE FLOOD.
Goddamn it. I hate the Flood. But, I suppose there couldn’t be a Halo game without them. The little zombie makers have made me notice something about the Halo series though. It would seem that the story seems to constantly repeat itself. Master Chief wakes up, wanders through Convenant, shoots things, the Flood shows up, he battles his way through them, then find the largest bomb possible (Spaceship, Halo, Artificial Planet, etc) and then proceeds to blow the crap out of everything, ending with his questionable disappearance, leaving everyone unsure as to whether he’s alive or dead. Sorry if I busted your spoiler-free bubble, but its true.

Honestly, at this point, I’m really bored with the story.  So, let’s move on to something else!

DEAR GOD, NO!
Multiplayer. The only thing I hate more about Halo than the Flood. Luckily, Mitch told me I would only have to sit through a few matches, just to get a feel of things. What I found surprised me. There was no trash talking. Actually, in all of the matches I played, there was at least one person who complimented my use of my dear sticky grenades. I was absolutely floored. Did they… really… just… compliment me? Instead of talking about my mother and tacos?... How many virgins did Bungie have to sacrifice for this??

And we got to play dress-up with our Spartans. I was instantly in love with this. For 3, Bungie has added in the ability to change more than just the armor color, but also the armor parts, like multiple helmets, shoulder pads, and so on. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any parts unlocked, except for like two or three, so my Spartan ended up looking like a 60’s Sci-fi reject.

An interesting addition here is the USNC tags. Evidently you can make a shortened tag for yourself made up of a letter and two numbers that will float over your head instead of your full name. In my opinion, that’s very cool, and a very good idea. When in the thick of things, you really don’t want to be trying to figure out how to sound out Ms7rbo0mr11. I think more games should toss that in when they have hectic multiplayer.

BUT THERE’S NEW TOYS!!
Oh, yes. There are new toys. And Erin and I love them. There’s the shields, invulnerability, shield sappers, regenerators, heavy turrets, flamethrowers, and more. The biggest addition here is the equipment, which can add some new flavor to the standard gameplay, offering new tactics other than just run in, guns blazing, especially when teamed up with a friend for the story. The new guns are cool, although sometimes it seems like they just don’t hold enough ammo, especially the Spartan laser and maulers. The new grenade, I love as much as I can, which is good because you find it approximately 3092^4 more often than the good old blue stickies. It works kind of like the stickies (in other words it still sticks), but it has an incredibly small explosion, so don’t hope to catch too many badies in the blast. Other new things: Mongoose (cool), Chopper (Not so much), Hornet (Hellyeahs!), and The Flood (Wait, what??). Seriously, there’s a couple new types of Flood enemies. I can barely contain my enthusiasm.

Another thing that’s welcome here is the Forge, which lets you modify maps, and put pretty much whatever you want down in the game. Want a rocket launcher with crap load of ammo just lying around? Go ahead!

Enter the “saved films” feature. While playing around in campaign mode, the game gives you the ability the record and save footage of yourself and who ever is with you, provided you leave the campaign and go to Theatre first. Basic functionality is here, cut, fast forward, etc. Make your own little gameplay movies, have a blast, yada yada yada. But then, those saved movies and modified maps can then be traded to friends with the… File sharing!

No, its not like Napster, but you can trade maps and even movies of your Gameplay expeditions to other players, if they even care that is. Which isn’t likely. After the 20 years of continuous video from Halo 2, I’m pretty burned out on “Hey look what I can do!” videos, and I imagine everyone else is too. Even Erin had a hard time getting excited about the Theatre.

As for the Achievements, they’re pretty standard. Kill so many enemies this way, Destroy so and so this way. Beat the game with this restriction. Find this skull. Get to this rank in Multiplayer, so on and so on. Honestly, the achievements are easy enough to get you might find yourself playing through the campaign a few times to get them, even if only to get the armors (squee!!) that the achievements unlock.

QUIT WHINING, YOU BABY.
In the end, I’m not too impressed. Erin was ecstatic about almost everything, but then again she’s the biggest Halo geek I’ve ever known. And, I doubt anyone is even reading this to decide whether or not they’re going to get the game. Mitch made me do this review just because he expected us to get complaints if we didn’t. I give it a decent score, it’s probably worth your money, unless you’re as burned out on Halo as I am. Let’s face it, if you like Halo, you’re going to get the game, if not, you won’t. There’s no mystery here.

[Wow. What a way to end a review. –Ed.]

[By the way, the Mitch mentioned in this is Michael "Mitch" Evans, the imaginary Editor of VoR, which isn't the same as the Mitch on the SEDiverse. Just a coincidence. -9]

VoR Review: Overlord

Overlord Review
by Garrett Patterson of VoR

Oh dear God, save me from mediocrity. That was my one ringing thought as I finished playing Overlord. This game, designed by Triumph Studios, and published by Codemasters, is a shining example of what not to do halfway through an action/adventure game project. And it starts out so well. As the title suggests you play as the Overlord, and you can pretty much do whatever you want. Here the catch, though: there is just not enough to do.  That's right. In the one game where it would be awesome to sandbox a bit, there's nothing. Sure, you can go through the areas you've conquered, but why? I'm not joking here; there is just really nothing to do.

What about the achievements, I hear some of the XBox 360 fanboys asking. For the love of Christ, someone needs to put a stop to that crap. There are forty some achievements for Overlord. Thirteen or so are for the horrific multiplayer mode. Two are for endings, which you choose in the first thirty minutes of the game. The other achievements are such ridiculous things as ACTUALLY PLAYING THROUGH THE GAME, which, apparently, the developers didn't expect.

Multiplayer in this is a bigger joke than it normally is. First off, only two player multiplayer mode, which is fine. Except, of course, for the other players. I, no joke, spent two and a half hours, HOURS, waiting for someone to join my co-op Survival game. I also have NEVER been able to find a game created by someone other than me, and that is a truly scary idea.

The story of the actual game itself is a joke of biblical size. The bosses of the game are weakly based on the seven deadly sins. Like that has been done to death. The plot is weak and predictable enough for a five year old to know what the "plot twist" is be in the first ten minutes. Plus, I'm pretty sure that the people over at Triumph Studios have some sort of sick obsession with morbidly obese characters.

All in all, the flaws of this game are just too many. This is a Fable clone without a "Good" path... Oh wait... Fable really didn't have one of those either. I would write a lot more on this game, but my blood pressure sky rockets just thinking about it. It score a weak 61% because the goal of the game was to be evil, and there just isn't enough evil to do.