Castlevania: Lords of Shadow: Mirror of Fate is a Nintendo 3DS spinoff game based in the Castlevania: Lords of Shadow universe. Mirror Fate serves as an interquel falling between the original Lords of Shadow and the upcoming Lords of Shadow 2, which will release later this year on PlayStation3, Xbox 360, and PC.




Mirror of Fate sets the stage for Lords of Shadow 2 by explaining how the Belmont bloodline continues and how Alucard came to be.
 
To give context to the gameplay, it helps to understand where the story begins in Mirror of Fate. For those that haven’t played the first game, I highly suggest you skip the rest of this paragraph. *SPOILERS* While attempting to rid the world of evil, Gabriel Belmont is corrupted and becomes the dreaded Dracula. The Brotherhood of Light foresees Gabriel’s transformation so Marie (Gabriel’s wife) delivers Gabriel’s child in secret, without his knowledge. The brotherhood takes the child, Trevor Belmont, as a baby and raises him as an elite vampire hunter in hopes of someday having him defeat Dracula. Trevor does not learn that Dracula is his father until he is an adult and has a family of his own. Ashamed of his origins, Trevor sets out to Dracula’s castle to avenge his family name, leaving a fragment of a mirror to his son Simon. Trevor does not return from Dracula’s castle and the following day Simon escapes into the woods as his mother is murdered by Dracula’s monsters. Simon spends the rest of his childhood growing up in the woods, living with barbarians. When Simon becomes an adult, he sets out to Dracula’s castle to avenge his mother’s death and find out what become of his father. *SPOILERS*
 


Mirror of Fate is divided into a prologue and three chapters. In the prologue, players get to briefly play as Gabriel Belmont on a mission hunting a demon. In the following three chapters, players take on the role of Simon Belmont, Alucard, and Trevor Belmont respectively.
 
All three characters share the same experience, level progression, and combat moves, however, they all play wildly different due to their individual power-ups and sub-items: Simon is a sluggish barbarian that focuses on absorbing damage rather than avoiding it and his power-ups (which can be turned off and on with the D-Pad) enhance this sensation. Early on, as an example, he unlocks a spirit which can absorb damage for him by draining his magic. Simon also obtains an axe sub-items that work exactly like axes in older Castlevania titles. Alucard on the other hand focuses more on sleight of hand evasion, using his mist form and other vampiric power-up. While Trevor uses light magic to restore his health and shadow magic to do more damage. Gameplay wise, Trevor comes across as the ultimate vampire hunter, with his chapter focusing more on player skill and timing than the use of items and power-ups.
 
While the idea of playing in the same castle as three different characters might sound boring, it’s not. Each hero’s power-ups lend themselves to unique terrain and obstacle traversal. Additionally, even though all three characters explore Dracula’s castle it’s never really the same castle. True to the series lore, the castle is physically different for each character. There’s a grand sense of déjà vu while wandering through the castle, “Didn’t Simon pass through this hallway and none of this was here?” Castlevania lore talks about Dracula’s castle being alive, and this is very much the case in Mirror of Fate.
 
Much like its direct predecessor, Mirror of Fate does not play like the typical Metroidvania style Castlevania games that many people are used to. Yes, you are free to explore Dracula’s castle. Yes, you obtain power-ups and level-up. But largely, Mirror of Fate is a linear game like older entries in the series. Your goal is to make it to Dracula’s throne room and Simon, Alucard, and Trevor all attempt to take the quickest possible path there. Along the way there are setbacks that see them plunging deeper into Dracula’s labyrinthine castle. The heroes all get stronger and gain new skills as they push deeper into the castle, but there is a sense of commitment to pushing forward rather than a driveexplore the castle’s mysteries. This is further compounded by the use of teleportation devices that appear before each chapter’s encounters with Dracula. The teleportation devices allow you to quickly return to previous parts of the castle and grab goodies that you couldn’t unlock until this point in the game. This means that exploration is essentially pointless until you come across the final power-ups that allow you to pass each blocked path.
 
One of the main things that might upset Metroidvania fans is the fact that characters' unlockables are limited to increasing maximum health, maximum magic, and maximum sub-items. Players won’t be finding awesome new weapons or some crazy secret no one knew about. To its credit though, Mirror of Fate does have a considerable amount of lore to be unlocked via scrolls found on dead knights and bestiary cards hidden throughout levels. Scrolls give an interesting look into the Lord of Shadows lore, as do the bestiary entries which unlock 3D models of creatures and brief entries about their history.
 

 
One of the strongest features of the game is its awesome boss fights. The battles themselves are very unique and interesting, and the bosses are equally well designed. Sometimes a cheap death can occur, but thankfully Mirror of Fate has a great checkpoint system that actually saves progress mid-fight without making things overly easy.
 
Another strong feature, at least for Castlevania fans, is the huge assortment of nods to older entries in the series. From the return of certain sub-items such as the axe and stopwatch to new takes on classic monsters such as mermen, flea men, and zombies; I always found myself looking to spot an adaptation. Old locations like the clock tower also return, with new enjoyable twists.
 
The graphics in Mirror of Fate are pretty terrific for the most part. Playing with the 3D on is particularly incredible as ghosts and other creatures sometimes wander around in the background. The only real drawback to this is that sometimes it can be difficult to differentiate the foreground and background unless you are playing with the 3D mode on.
 
Sounds wise, Mirror of Fate is probably one of the more subdued Castlevania entries. The music is more classical and not as noticeable as other entries like Symphony of the Night. The subdued music allows for some truly great sound and moodiness, however. You can often hear enemies shambling, rattling, or flying around before you even see them. That aspect of the sound was quite enjoyable and different.
 


On the negative side, the excellent fast paced combat of Mirror of Fate does have its draw backs, namely unblockable attacks and a lack of a way to avoid them at times. Quick time events are also present, but are not terribly difficult or annoying. The biggest drawback, however, is that there is no true “master map” for the castle, allowing the player to see how each level connects on the pause screen. This can be confusing and frustrating when trying to obtain an item that require traveling from one level into another, as level connections are often more so implied than truly visible. Additionally, load screens between levels and between deaths can sometimes be quite long. Not terribly so, but enough to mess up some of the game’s momentum at times. It also worth noting that the regular ending for Mirror of Fate is somewhat abrupt and unsatisfying. The secret ending obtained on 100% completion is is quite good though and gives an idea as to where Lords of Shadow 2 will begin.
 
For players that are willing to play a non-Metroidvania style Castlevania game Mirror of Fate is one of the better Castlevania games that has been released in a long time. The Lords of Shadow series does a faithful job of adapting existing Castlevania lore and attempting to tie it into a simpler, more easily understood plot. Mirror of Fate is an excellent entry in the series, so it’s a shame then that this title will likely go overlooked by some self-proclaimed series purists.

8.5/10

I just beat DmC. It was a great game and I’m glad I played.

First off, let me say that I was in the original crowd of people that went apeshit when the first announce the game back in 2010 and subsequently showed his new design.


It was going to impurify my precious video game series.

However, over the past year or so, after seeing some in-game footage I felt a lot more comfortable with the concept of DmC. It may not have been a “true” Devil May Cry game, but it looked like it was at least trying.

I picked up DmC the day it came out via PSN. I went into the game not really knowing what to expect.

The opening title screen implied that Dante was getting a blowjob and watching the opening cutscene for the first mission did little to instill greater expectations.

“I get it,” I thought, “Dante has sex and can says ‘Fuck’ a lot. Edgy.”

DmC (whether knowingly or not) gets the worst out of the way up front. Dante is at his most annoying when the game first begins. If you were worried about DmC having Dante be a sexed-up, annoying, asshole, then the opening scenes will give you little solace.

Without spoiling the plot or some of the later gameplay: Dante evolves over the course of the game as both a playable character on screen and as a character in the more traditional sense. I soon found myself hating Dante less and less, and liking him more and more.

I’m not saying DmC is the best game ever written. It’s not. The story is well written, however, and the characters are not as two-dimensional as many other games. DmC does an excellent job of showing Dante grow as a character and showing you why he had that growth.

DmC could have easily gone terribly wrong with clunky gameplay and Duke Nukem Forever one-liners, but it didn’t.

It’s an incredible game, with brilliant art direction and some interesting level design.

While the combat difficulty is dumbed-down quite a bit from say Devil May Cry 3, the combat is easily as difficult as Devil May Cry 4 and it’s actually a lot more fluid and well put together.

As a package, the levels, art, combat, and story just flow a lot better than any of the other Devil May Cry games. DmC has not dethroned Devil May Cry 3 as my favorite Devil May Cry entry, but it is a much more cohesive package.

I can remember the entire plot for DmC. The plot makes sense to me, or at least as much sense as a good video game does.

DmC tells the story of Dante discovering who he is and how he evolves as a person. The story is compelling enough to keep the player coming back, and the missions generally end on somewhat of a cliffhanger television episode.

DmC kept me coming back to snack on the 20 to 30 minute bites each mission takes. I would often find myself thinking, “Just one more mission.” Not unlike opening a bag of chips.

I was driven on to find out what would happen next, what abilities Dante would unlock next, or what strange places he might visit.

I found myself invested in DmC as a world, and not just for individual elements.

The ending was done well too, for a game that will inevitably have a sequel. The final boss didn’t rise from the ashes as the screen faded to credits. It was a little more subtle than that and not necessarily what Western audiences might be used to.

DmC is worthy of the title of Devil May Cry. Much like the Marvel Cinematic Universe is to Marvel, DmC is a unique adaptation of a series that is brave enough to venture into its own territory while maintaining the important piece of identity that still make it a Devil May Cry game.

I think that the next entry of DmC will only be better.


My suggestion, maybe next time there can be more Jason and the Argonauts references.

I wasn't sure what to expect from A Game of Dwarves when I first picked it up. I had heard comparisons to Dungeon Keeper, but that didn't tell me much about it. There are just too many nuances in games today to compare them directly. A Game of Dwarves is many games: a resources management game, a (dwarven) life simulator, and a city/fortress building game.

The game starts out pretty much the way you might expect: The dwarves used to have a giant kingdom and many allies, but a sinister force of orcs and goblins controlled by a group called the Mages appeared and wiped out all but the last of dwarves. It's pretty much what we've come to expect from a generic fantasy world.

Don't let the generic plot drive you away though. The developer knows that they're borrowing from other sources and they wear it on their sleeve. And they change it up a bit by adding in some comedy and pop culture references.

You'll soon dive into the game, playing as the son of the King Father and as it turns out, you're kind of a lazy asshole. So the King Father kicks you out into the world and tasks you with creating your own clan, and eventually reclaiming the former dwarven kingdoms.

There is a decent in-game manual that explains some of the basics, that I recommend reading before diving in. Odds are though, you won't understand how a lot of the game works until you actually start playing. Which is okay, because the first settlement you are tasked with developing in the game is a tutorial that the King Father walks you through. There's still a fair bit of head scratching in the beginning but there's generally enough help to get you moving.

At its core, gameplay basically boils down to three different modes: Dig to explore and create (or discover) new rooms, build new objects to develop your settlement, and train dwarfs and research tech. It sounds basic, but when everything is running all at once it gets more complicated.

In the digging mode, you tell your dwarves to carve out specific blocks creating a honeycomb of hallways and rooms, eventually digging further down vertically. As your dwarves dig, they can come across different resources: gold, iron, silver, fertile soil, etc. These resources are limited so how you choose to use them is going to greatly affect your settlement. The fertile soil tiles especially throw a kink into things, since they are destroyed forever if you dig them up and they are the only way you can grow resources like food and wood. You might be intent on mining further for gold, only to be hindered by a large patch of fertile soil. Do you leave the soil to farm on later or destroy it and search for more gold?



Once you have enough resources you can begin building: Dwarves need beds to sleep in, tables to eat at, and food put on those tables. Managing the dwarves’ happiness is not unlike The Sims. That's just the basics though. There is plenty more in depth building both functional and aesthetic. The are a variety of dwarf jobs classes and some of them are more effective if you build them items: fighters can train by fighting dummies, scholars can research at research tables, etc. The aesthetic items serve a purpose as well though, they make your dwarves happy, and when they're happy they work harder. After all, wouldn't you rather work in a marble hall with badass banners than a dirt hole? I thought so.

After you have your settlement ironed out and your dwarves all running like a well oiled machine, you can begin to expand your research into various tech trees. Scholars provide research points that can allow you to do things like upgrade your fighters to archers or knights, build more effective objects, dig faster, place traps, and so on.

Of course, at some point your dwarves will probably accidentally dig into a pit filled with goblins, orcs, or some other nasties. That's why it's important that you actually train some fighter dwarves at some point. A nasty orc or goblin can make short work of a poor digger dwarf.

Each level has an objective that is stated at the beginning. Generally the objective (at least for me so far) seems to revolve around reaching a specific room buried somewhere on the map. This might seem like a simple objective, given that you can dig in any direction, but it’s not. There are blocks called undiggium (or something to the effect) that your diggers can’t (as you may have guess) dig through. So you can’t simply dig straight down fifteen blocks into the objective. Generally, you will have to dig and spiral down, discover rooms, unlock doors, and finally reach the objective. Fighting whatever evil creatures you unearth along the way. Even then, simply completing the main objective and moving on isn’t the wisest move. Each level has a series of “side quests” where you might have to unlock a certain tech tree, build X or Y, have a certain type of dwarf, etc in order to complete the side quest. And there’s reason to do it! After you beat a level, if you completed certain side quests, you unlock “influence” that allows you to upgrade the prince. This can range from making the prince better in combat, getting more money at the beginning of each level, or being more effective at research. It seems well worth the trouble!



There’s a lot that can happen in A Game of Dwarves, and all of that is further complicated by the fact that every level is randomly generated. Luckily, there is a freeplay sandbox mode, for those of you that might want a more laid back game. The mode allows you make a custom game by determining the size of the map, the number of discoverable rooms, the amount of resources, and the amount of enemies. You could even turn the enemies off all together, start with a maxed tech tree, and the ability to create non-dwarf items. Granted, if you wanted you could also create a map loaded with enemies and few resources. The idea of the mode though (aside from adding more missions and play time) is to allow people to create the giant dwarven settlement that they dream of from scratch! Don’t want to worry about enemies and gold while you build your giant underground castle? No problem!

That’s not to say that the game is without faults though. By most accounts, the game is pretty ugly. While I like some of the artistic cartoony design, there’s no getting around that at least some of it is probably due to a low budget. The dwarves especially are pretty homely looking… And their animations are even worse, surprisingly. Sometimes the dwarves literally float around; like the game somehow forgot they were supposed to be walking. There’s also very little voice acting outside of a few grunted sentences and phrases. The opening cutscene is voiced, but outside of that, you’re going to be reading everything else. The camera also get's a little bit wonky at times as the the levels fill up with winding tunnels and labyrinths, but nothing too bad.



Overall though, the game is fun despite a few bugs and a learning curve that’s steeper than it really had to be. I could see some people who love Minecraft getting carried away building the perfect settlement all the way from the surface to the bottom of the map. I can easily see this game becoming a cult classic for those that put the time and love in!

If you enjoy any kind of city building or resource management game, A Game of Dwarves might be worth a look! It may not be the prettiest game, but it’s fun and there’s a decent amount of content. And it’s only $10!

(PC [reviewed], Xbox 360)

Kung Fu Strike is an arcade beat ‘em up mixed with a fighting game, with some light RPG elements thrown in for good measure. The game itself is the Western version of a game called HurricaneX2, which was developed by an actual Kung Fu practitioner. The developer wanted to create a martial arts arcade game that focused on timing and countering, rather than mindless button mashing.

The game begins with the player as General Loh, insisting that he must talk to Master Mo at a temple in the mountains. Master Mo’s pupils don’t take kindly to Loh bossing them around and Loh soon finds himself fighting his way to Master Mo (at least for the first few stages, anyway).

Kung Fu Strike is split up into 28 stages and the story is told through comic panels at the loading screen for each stage.



The game starts out a little on the easy side, though there are three difficulty levels. In the first few stages the game will walk you through the basic gameplay, and due to this, it actually takes a few stages for the game to become interesting. The first stages will have you master striking, blocking, rolling, jumping, and doing special moves. Later you will also unlock the ability to call backup NPCs to help you in battle (for a price). Though the controls are simple, the difficulty soon ratchets up and you will find yourself dying quite a lot unless you master blocking and evading.

The way that the difficulty ratchets up in Kung Fu Strike reminds me a lot of classic arcade games like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Metal Slug. In fact, I found that by the 16th stage I had to turn the difficulty down in order to even progress. Unfortunately, with the influence of great arcade games, some of their annoyances come along as well: Bosses will call for back up, some enemies will have regenerating health, and some enemies will one-shot kill you right at the end of a stage.



Kung Fu Strike doesn’t make battles completely unfair though: Blocking and evading will (for the most part) save you entirely from damage. If your health gets too low, a small amount of it will regenerate as long as you avoid damage. Defeating enemies also randomly drop health, chi (used for special moves), money, and horns (used to call backup). You will also unlock money at the end of each stage and occasionally new moves and equipment. You can then spend your money at the stage select screen to unlock new moves, equipment, and health/chi upgrades.

Graphically speaking, Kung Fu Strike is not the prettiest game. The graphics are at the level of something you probably would have seen five years ago. However, that’s mostly forgivable since the art style is similar to Okami or Street Fighter IV which helps create its own believable atmosphere. The colorful graphics help easily differentiate between different enemy types, letting you know which fighting style you should use. Enemies range from monks, bandits, monsters, and even an old man. New enemies pop up often enough to always keep things fresh and force you to change your fighting style. It’s also worth noting that the game runs incredibly well with no slow down, even with dozens of enemies and projectiles on the screen at the same time.
Sound in the game is ultimately forgettable. There’s no real voice work other than the grunts and groans of battle. The music is equally forgettable. I literally can’t remember any of it. Overall though, the sound works well enough, forgettable as it is. All of the sounds are appropriate and serve to enhance the sense of action.



The main story in Kung Fu Strike will probably take you 4 to 5 hours at most to complete. It will take you longer to unlock all of the different moves, backup troops, equipment, and upgrades. It will take longer still to get S ranks in every stage or if you decide to play through the campaign again in local co-op.

Kung Fu Strike is a great twist on the classic arcade beat ‘em up. The battles are awesome and satisfying, though sometimes extremely frustrating. Whether or not you enjoy the game will ultimately depend on how patient you are, but there’s a great game to be found if you can get past its frustrations.

(PC)

Warlock: Master of the Arcane is the latest sequel to the cult favorite Majesty series. However, other than sharing the world of Ardania and its lore, Warlock is very different from Majesty. Warlock looks like Civilization and that’s because the game borrows heavily from it in terms of basic gameplay. While it would be easy to quickly dismiss Warlock as “Civilization with magic” at a glance, you would be doing yourself a great injustice.

Starting the game for the first time, you will be confronted with a selection of options: defeat conditions, map size, difficulty, number of rival mages, etc. The defeat conditions range from defeating all rival mages, defeat an avatar (god), cast the unity spell (the ultimate spell), or capture 50% of holy grounds. You can toggle on or off whichever ones you want. You will then be tasked with choosing either a preset mage to represent yourself, or customizing a mage from his abilities, default unit type (human, monster, undead), etc. Once the game gets going, the story is pretty bare bones, but that helps you jump into the action. (There is plenty of lore to be read about on pretty much anything you can click though, so don’t worry if you wanted there to be an fantasy rich environment.) You will begin the gameplay at your capital, deciding what to focus on economically, and then begin to expand and explore. In a matter of turns, you will have likely developed one or two towns and possibly have discovered a rival mage. Your progress likely won’t be stopped by another mage at this point, however. You are more than likely going to be forced to strengthen your units and expand your towns economies, because there will be insanely strong neutral monsters roaming between you and your rivals (dragons, golems, krakens, etc).

This is where Warlock begins to make its differences from Civilization clear. If you want to expand any further, you are going to have to become strong enough to defeat monsters and sometimes even gods (should you anger them in some way). The two best ways to go about this are by building new structures in your towns or by having your units fight battles they can win: Each town is based around a castle which can be defeated in order to take over the town. New structures can be built on hexes surrounding the castles, depending on the size of the population. Some structures require special resources on a hex to be built (water for a port, iron for a refinery, gold of a mine, etc). New structures will almost always lead to some kind of buff that can be purchased for your units (armor, health, experience, etc) or the ability to produce a new unit (vampires, eleven archers, minotaur, etc). The really nice thing is that that units produced in the town with the buff will automatically get them, units from other towns have to pay a small fee for the buff however. If you use your units regularly (and don’t get them killed), they will level up, adding new buffs. OH, AND DID I MENTION THAT ALL THE BUFFS STACK!? This means that there is a heavy emphasis on keeping units alive so that they become nearly invincible!

Now that you have your strong units it’s time to begin attacking other mages towns or ridding open areas of dangerous baddies. Many of the strong neutral monsters in the game either already exist on the map, spawn at random (you usually get a notice at the beginning of your turn: eg “Elementals are Invading”), or they come through a gateway that connects to a dangerous realm. This means that if you are going to begin developing towns in “dangerous” zones, you will usually have to dedicate strong units to protecting that area, even after the baddies have been dealt with. Not that your towns are incapable of protecting themselves: The castles at the center of each town can shoot arrows at enemy units and the capital can cast magic missiles. Additionally, you can build towers or magic towers to help defend your town.



If you decide to attack a rival’s town, you should be sure that you are attacking with units that won’t be wiped out in one shot. This means that if you are attacking a town surrounded by magic towers, your character better have a strong resistance to magic or high melee resistance if the town is protected by soldiers. Once you have captured a town, you gain access to its race, so if you are playing as undead and capture humans, you then have access to human buildings and units.

Battles play out somewhat like Fire Emblem, with an estimated damage indicator for each side before you decide to attack. This is especially helpful since identical unit’s strengths can vary greatly due to buffs.

If at some point you find yourself in a difficult battle or short on food, money, or mana (the three economies in the game), you can simply cast a spell that will help you since you are a mage! All spells require mana. Spells (besides your default ones) must be researched before they can be cast. You can also randomly receive spells by looting monster lairs or by completing certain favors that gods ask you to do (build an altar, defeat their enemies, etc). Spells vary from giant firestorms, plagues of locusts, summoning ghost wolves, to spells that weaken or buff units. Each spell takes a different amount of time to research, depending on how strong it is and how many buildings you have dedicated to research. The thing you are going to either hate or love about the game is that you can only research one spell at a time, and the spells you can research are completely at random (starting with weaker spells). At first this annoyed me, but I believe that it is there for balance so that you can’t choose the spell that will lead to a giant fire spell right at the beginning of the game.

It should be noted that Gods play a significant role in the game. They can greatly help you if you do their bidding. However, if you piss them off, they might just come down and start destroying all of your towns.

Another huge part of the game (and a nod to Majesty) is the inclusion of lords. They are essentially very strong mercenary units that have a high upkeep cost. These units can also equip special items to enhance their abilities, which normal units can't do. Winning a battle can often come down to whether or not one of your lords is participating.

There are also some light diplomacy elements which allow you to negotiate with rival mages. You can declare peace, war, non-aggression, or trade. The diplomacy isn’t very detailed, but it does affect how rival mages perceive you, if they will allow you cross their land, and if they will attack you.

Technically speaking, the game gets the job done well enough. Sounds are great and satisfying; the clash of metal when soldiers attack and the sound of arrows hitting are spot on. Each lord has their own voice actor that helps give them their own personalities. Some of the units are also voiced, with the human units generally having comically over-done heroic lines. Graphically, the game is pretty and has its own style, but ultimately isn’t anything that’s going to blow you away. It’s nice that you can zoom right up into the action though and get a semi-detailed look at your units. There are lots of varied landscapes (snowy mountains, deserts, swamps, etc) and each of the races has their own structures that make them easily identifiable.

My first game on normal difficulty on a medium sized map, took me 15 hours.With the amount of content and beta multiplayer just starting, the game is a steal at $20! If you enjoy sending units off into unknown lands behind the fog, building up your army, and conquering anybody that dares stand against you, this game is a must buy! It’s definitely a “Just one more turn...” game that will keep you up later into the morning than you probably want.