Scarygirl, whose story unfolds through quick bits of text between levels, gets a primer in combat from a strange, mystical ninja rabbit, who guides players through the intricacies of combat using Scarygirl’s strange tentacle arm and other invaluable abilities, such as blocking oncoming attacks and a “rage” mode that allows her to plow through enemies like a hot knife through butter. After mastering the misfit monster girl’s basic repertoire, it’s simple to string together your newly-learned abilities to explore. Some abilities, such as grabbing and tossing enemies in a direction specified by aiming an analog stick, can be touchy, and hardly improve with practice, but aren’t used often enough to present any real annoyance. Controls feel tight and natural — not Mario standards, but acceptable nevertheless.

You’ll be presented with ample opportunities to put your newfound abilities to good use as Scarygirl traverses the land (mountaintops, underground caverns, and standard platformer fare) encountering neon hedgehogs, malevolent weeds, angry Yeti cubs, and a menagerie of other creatures with their sights set on keeping you from your goal. Luckily those who enjoy combo-based brawling should feel right at home here, carving through the sometimes ridiculous onslaught of enemies with finesse, a button masher’s dream.

Upgrades purchased through the painstaking collection of the alluring gems littered throughout each area make uprooting weird weeds and slowing down stubborn rams a breeze. Giving Scarygirl an anchor attachment, for example, allows her to inflict more damage. A feather upgrade will give her more air time when gliding through the air for those particularly nasty jumps. If packing gems into your inventory doesn’t scratch that collector’s itch, vinyl stickers can be sought after for each enemy type and aspect of the wild landscape, and some can be obtained via swapping gems. Upgrades and vinyls can be costly additions to your inventory, but the satisfying chimes that accompany your gem-hunting are hugely satisfying, and one of the most memorable parts of the game. In fact, Scarygirl’s smallest nuances, such as dodging massive swarms of spiders, the strange “surveillance” cameras that aid as checkpoints, and other oddities make it stand out much more in contrast to other platformers currently available via Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Network.

Co-op play allows you to trot through Scarygirl’s astute campaign mode even more quickly than one player could, which makes the platformer a quick weekend play. But its out-there decor, out-there heroine, and overall quirk factor enhance this already strong platformer, making it an adventure you’d do well to take. Especially if tentacle-armed girls are your thing.

Hello Games’ fantastic arcade romp tells the story of fallen stuntman Joe, who’s on the road to redemption after a stunt gone horribly awry. After a terrible accident that left many of Joe’s fans wondering if he’d ever be able to hop back on a bike again, the former Evil Knievel-wannabe’s career goes right down the toilet. After he’s rehabilitated himself properly and is ready to get back on the path to glory, Joe’s a little older (and hopefully a little wiser) and is pumped and primed to show the world once again that he’s the greatest stuntman who ever lived.

It’s up to you to aid Joe in his quest for glory. Across several stages and different events you’re tasked with pulling off sweet stunts and completing objectives while doing so. You could, quite simply, keep your finger on the trigger and cruise straight through each stage without attempting any stunts and all and still pass as long as you reach the finish line (or a checkpoint) in one piece, but you won’t make any progress. Joe Danger requires you to put forth an effort each and every time you set out to complete a stage, requiring you earn stars via performing a variety of stunts: dodging the obstacles in your path, clearing the level’s assigned high score, collecting letters, and keeping within your own lane. Well, that one isn’t so much a stunt as it is just playing the game correctly. But you know what I mean.

Using the analog sticks and triggers to hit some sweet jumps and spin Joe through the air is hilarious and addictive, just like memorizing each stage. And you will. You’ll land on your back a couple of times (this is to be expected) or run right into a speed bump rather than dodging or doing a bunny hop. And even when you’re sent back to the start of each stage to try again after failing multiple times, the game never once makes you feel as though you’re incompetent or simply aren’t cut out for it.

Unlike a similar game on the same platform, Trials HD (which comparisons will inevitably be drawn from), Joe Danger has a much lighter and less demanding tone, as if it were a classic arcade game rebuilt from the ground up as a spectacular current-gen HD update. If you fall, you get right back up and try again. No pressure. The only thing keeping you from progressing is your own unwillingness to keep trying. It’s a friendly, open atmosphere that kept me doggedly coming back for more despite the knowledge that I hadn’t quite figured out the layout of the next track. But the game made me want to succeed. The whimsical, colorful events and even Joe’s lighthearted nature all work together to produce a low-stress environment that gives you ample opportunities to learn, pick up new abilities, and succeed on your own with minimal handholding.

If the hints scattered throughout each event don’t aid you in your quest, then the all-new Labs mode should work perfectly for that purpose. Five parts with five to six chapters apiece find Joe in different arenas riddled with challenges and a sandbox-style mode of play. Labs aims to ensure you leave armed with better knowledge at how to handle the bike, whether it’s pulling off air tricks or conquering the Wall of Death. It isn’t too big of a departure from Career mode, but works fantastically should you need a little extra help figuring out the right speed to hit a ramp or the proper technique for landing wheels-first instead of with Joe’s spine. Poor guy.

Sandbox Mode is exactly how it sounds: it’s an open environment and toys for you to create your best Joe Danger level to share with friends via Xbox Live. And trust me, there’s plenty for you to customize. Tweak where the ramps will go, create insidious track requirements, and then challenge your friends to beat them. Split-screen multiplayer (online is not included for some strange reason, though would have been a welcome addition) is available should you want to test your abilities against a friend. In this day and age it’s actually a breath of fresh air to see human interaction encouraged, though the absence of online competition is a strange one, considering the nature of Joe Danger. It seems practically tailored for taking the show on the road (pun intended), but I suppose that wasn’t Hello Games’ intention.

If you don’t take the journey to the top with Mr. Danger, then you’ll want to stay for the chipper traveling tunes and the brilliant attention to detail. Once Joe pulls off some particularly awesome moves, the announcer comes forth to provide his own commentary on the event, and the crowd will react appropriately. The bright, lush colors go a long way to make you feel welcome, like even if you’re not so great of a player you can still certainly succeed.

Joe Danger is a fantastic Xbox Live Arcade release and a treat that even the most hardcore trick racing/racing fans in general can appreciate. It’s a welcome throwback to the way games used to be before everything got unnecessarily serious, and an example of what even a small talented team of developers can create. We need more games like this, and I’m hoping that the potential success of this special edition will allow us a sequel in the near future. I’m already hankering for more Danger.

Hits and misses really. I feel that SOE’s basic idea on the in game marketplace is well founded. Nothing in the market that really breaks the game. Nothing stat altering or anything. The f2p players are able to see all the original release content and are able to purchase the DLC that lets them into the large chunks of new content. If, like me, you decide to pay for the service, you get everything you always had since the beginning. No real issues there. The que priorities put paying customers ahead of free-loaders in terms of entering the server. They combined all server into one, which I am a huge fan of. The game can take the extra bodies, and the phasing system keeps the shards from getting to congested, but you can still play side by side with your friends. I can level in the PVE server to move quickly then switch to PVP when I’m leveled with a basic amount of gear. The overhaul of the combat system since last I played really worked out. Combat feels really smooth, despite people on forums griping like hell over people who seem to be hacking. And that is the one thing I didn’t like that was still around since the last time I played.

Forum trolls. Despite at the time of writing this there being between 5,000 and 6,000 people playing through Steam alone right now, there are still people who sit in several forum sites and non-stop trash talk a game that they obviously know nothing about. And since f2p went up, it hasn’t slowed down. The truly weird part in all of this is that no one notices that all the complaints seem to be coming from the same small group of people. There is never anyone coming forward to put down any of the falsehoods perpetrated by these people either. Its like all the players who are loving it have a “don’t feed the trolls” policy. It makes it very hard to find any legitimate information without having to dig through hours of nonsense.

As of today the latest major DLC release “Lightning Strikes” has come out. I plan on working towards testing it out. Kind of disappointed that the new city added seems not as intricate as I thought, but until I get the gear to get in, I won’t know for sure. Hopefully my lazy ass friends get their shit together and help me kick the crap out of some heroes.

If you played Dungeon Siege 3 to completion, you can load up your endgame save to access the new area for the DLC. Just head on over to the causeway and you should see a new pathway open for you. Another way to get into Treasures of the Sun is at least make it to the point where you control the Stonebridge Chapterhouse, there will be a quest giver there that will open up the area in the causeway for you to enter. This is how I ended up playing it.

I would love to say the story was interesting but when it comes to these types of games, I breeze through most of the dialogue since I want to get to the killing. What I gathered from the times I forced myself out of the habit of skipping the dialogue seemed as good if not better than the main game had. I wish I paid more attention to the story in both since the voice acting is great.

Along with a whole new region to explore, new additions are also here. Some are welcomed while some seem not quite needed. One of the things I loved that was new in Treasures of the Sun DLC was all the new loot to grab. There are some pretty good equipment to find in the Aranoi Desert. I was happy when I would find another high-end item to make me that much more powerful, which I needed to be to fight off all the new enemy types I faced. Since I went into this new area at level 12, I got a challenge. it was so much of a challenge that I had to turn down the difficulty from Hard to Normal in order to stand a chance. Even after the drop in difficulty I felt like I was still having to fight for my life fending off mummies, sand monsters, sand worms and a assortment of spiders and skeletons.

The ‘boss’ fights that you encounter when doing the quests in the Aranoi Desert were really a blast to play. Constantly using all of my abilities to stay alive was a test to how well I used them and at the right time. It doesn’t hurt to have an ‘Ultimate Power’ to use either. Being another of the new additions in Treasures of the Sun DLC, you get a choice of three different powers to pick. Shield, health regen or an AOE (area of effect) attack are your choices which at any point you can switch between, provided that you visit the shrines at the beginning of the Aranoi Desert. I only found the AOE to be the most helpful. When getting swarmed by enemies, I would rather kill everyone than heal only to be killed by being overwhelmed. One caveat to using this ability is that it will use up all of your power orbs. You build them back up fast enough to not worry about using them.

The two things that really didn’t make sense for me were essences and transmute. Essences let you enhance your equipment to get better stats. The stats I saw it boosting were nothing that would benefit my character, I decided to never use it. Making that decision also saved me some gold since you have to pay to use essences. Transmute was also a let down. I thought it would let me pull off equivalent exchange and make something useful out of some of the junk I had in my inventory. All it really does is break down the item into gold and if that item had a certain attribute, an essence. At least I could free up some space and make a little cash in the process.

I want to go back to Treasures in the Sun DLC after I beat the main game of Dungeon Siege 3 to see if things scale to my level. Honestly I think I am just looking for an excuse to play more of this game and get to the new level cap of 35. Which is to say if you are looking to do just that, pick up Treasures of the Sun DLC. For $9.99, you get a good 5 hour jaunt back into the world of scouring every corner to find that next treasure chest in a exciting new area.

In the year 2221, the human race has sought sanctuary in space. The Convocation, four alien races working together as a sort of consulate, welcomed them to their ranks. It was a peaceful time and one where humans and their newfound alien comrades could work and live together in harmony. However, humans will be humans. Inevitably they broke apart into their own separate factions and began warring over resources. Typical, right? These resources are dwindling as it is, so greed fuels these petty duels. That’s where you come in. You step into the role of assistant to crotchety old Professor Tyre, who might have found the solution to the shrinking resource issue. But just like humans wanted to gobble up all of the resources for themselves, everyone also wants this new solution, including the Dark Legion, a malevolent alien race who’s out for blood. After a particularly nasty attack on Professor Tyre’s space station, you’re left to meet up with Professor Tyre’s acquaintance Judah in order to protect the professor’s findings and to ensure they don’t end up with the Dark Legion or any of the other nasties patrolling the galaxy.

This rather intriguing story is actually quite compelling, and unfolds across several different missions, each assigned from different factions. There is no on-foot exploration, simply ships only, but at several hub locations you can choose to take on different missions for one of the groups that comprise the Convocation. Each faction, of course, has different ships, allies, and enemy types, so if you grow tired of fraternizing with the Sunshadow Syndicate, for example, you can start taking on contract jobs for the Praetoriate Fleet. Fusion: Genesis offers over 100 of these missions, each assigning a different amount of XP and money for your hard work, which can be used in turn to upgrade your ship, buy new weapons, etc. You can also purchase and upgrade small machines known as “Sentients,” which act as assistants in a way. They can fight off enemies and in addition mine for you automatically.

Unfortunately, mining isn’t exactly something you’ll want to do often in the game, but something that is necessary. You or your Sentient can mine to find minerals, money, and other assorted items. If you decide to do it yourself it can take longer than the mining we all simply loved in Mass Effect 2, so it’s a good idea to keep a Sentient handy to tackle it for you. The handy dandy little machines can also take your excess cargo, items, and credits off back to sell for additional credits, lessening your load and leaving you to perform tasks you need to get out of the way. I’ve seen this system before in other games, and it never ceases to be useful. Who wants to backtrack that often? Not me.

A cornucopia of upgrades, customization options, and stat boosts are available for use as you progress through the campaign, and there’s plenty of exploration to do. The orchestral soundtrack is grand and sweeping, and when there are voiceovers the lines are delivered with refreshing gusto. You can certainly see plenty of love was put into making the debut game great.

In addition to a sprawling, fantastic single-player mode, Fusion: Genesis rocks four-player co-op mode and competitive multiplayer. While cooperative play allows players to drop in and drop out at will, you can also choose to play Dark Legion raids, which are similar to Horde Mode of Gears of War 3. Competitive multiplayer isn’t exactly something I’d recommend spending much time on (I couldn’t anyway, without being able to find many other players), as it isn’t nearly as entertaining as cooperative play or simply experiencing the story mode on your own.

Fusion: Genesis may be a twin-stick shooter at its core, but RPG elements and excellent production value make it an Xbox Live Arcade title you might think about picking up once you’ve cleaved through the avalanche of new releases so far this fall. Grab some friends and take the plunge. Just don’t get caught up in mining too long.

Batman’s no longer traversing the mazelike Arkham Asylum. In fact, the spotlight has shifted to the titular Arkham City, a roped-off section of Gotham in which hardened criminals are free to roam. It’s a place full of broken dreams and insanity, and a place that shouldn’t have been allowed to come to fruition. Through a series of chilling events that unfold at the beginning of the game that I won’t spoil here, Batman infiltrates the city and embarks on a journey that continuously leads him down some of the darkest paths we’ve seen yet, including the fate of the Joker after the previous game.

Exploring Arkham City is nowhere near as impressive as being given free reign over Gotham, but still remains a sizeable wasteland in which you can zip, glide, and dive to reach any key location in a matter of minutes. While landmarks seem to exist in the distance and you’re left wondering how long it’s actually going to take to reach, you’re pleasantly surprised when it’s a cakewalk to reach the courthouse, or it’s only a hop, skip, and a jump away to find Poison Ivy’s lair. There’s a satisfying velocity to be felt while making good use of Batman’s gliding ability, and his zipline conjures some of the best Spider-Man moments. It feels fantastic, so while there’s a great deal of free-range exploration to be done, it never feels like a chore.

Combat still feels, for the most part, effortless. The freeflow system, however, doesn’t allow for a very large margin of error, especially when foes are armed with guns or knives. Combo moves can take a while to get into the groove, but well-timed hits are rewarded with extra power and punishing finishers, not to mention extra experience points. Additional tools such as electrical charges and quickfire explosive gel add an explosive punch to the equation as well.The infamous stealth segments of Arkham Asylum return as well, only this time thugs are quick to destroy the very pillars you’re hanging from, though it’s still easy and extremely satisfying to quick-Batarang a dim-witted foe who thought for some reason you disappeared in the span of three seconds. They’re really bright. At the end of each scuffle, a slow-motion look at the foe you just felled takes over, recharging your health gauge and assigning experience points, just like with Arkham Asylum. As soon as the fight is over you’re back to feeling indestructible, just like “being” Batman should.

If you’re content to never stray from the main campaign, that’s fine, but you’d be missing out on a plethora of different side quests. The numerous Riddler trophies (400 in all) are scattered throughout Arkham City, which will unlock access to new challenge maps, artwork, character trophies, and other niceties. They can be a real pain to sniff out, but finding them all is hugely satisfying and an undertaking in itself. If you’re not interested in treasure hunting, tracking down ringing phones all over the city in Zsasz’s side quests or sniffing out Deadshot are viable alternatives, ensuring that if and when the central plot line fails to entertain you, there’s always something else to do.

New copies of Arkham City are packaged with a single use code with which to download Catwoman. Though she doesn’t add any significant content to the main narrative, she feels quite different than Batman — whipping around the high-rises and using her claws to fell enemies is a welcome change when switching from gravelly Batman to the purring Selina Kyle. Still, she doesn’t add the host of content one would expect from an additional purchase used copy buyers would be forced to make. It’s an interesting diversion every now and then, but nothing I’d suggest paying any sort of extra sum for.

Batman: Arkham City is a triumph in many ways. It’s a testament to how the comic book tie-in has grown and continues to grow over the years. It’s a celebration of the Batman universe we have come to know and love, and it’s certainly an adventure you won’t soon forget. Now how long until Spidey, Superman, and the X-Men jump on the great game bandwagon? Rocksteady, I think you’ve got some proteges to tend to.

The name of the game that has me so intrigued really sounds familiar, in fact I know I’ve seen that logo somewhere before. Ah-ha, that’s what it is. Anima: Ark of Sinners is set in the world of the European pen and paper roleplaying game Anima: Beyond Fantasy. It has the same cool anime inspired artwork that made me take notice of the RPG books. There’s really only one thing left for me to do, and fortunately I just happen to have 1000 Wii points that have been sitting unused on my shop channel for who knows how long.

Once my download is complete and I start the game up I’m introduced to the protagonist Celia through a short cut scene. The cut scenes are presented as still frames of stunning art, with dialog running at the bottom of the screen. Through the scene I learn that Celia, who is your standard gothy-scantily clad anime babe is also a partial amnesiac. She’s lost her companion Nemo, and is stuck in this ancient abandoned city. It’s a bit cliche, but so far the presentation is good so I don’t mind.

After that cut scene Celia and i jumped right into some action. The game is a 2D action platformer that is rendered in 3D, which gives a sense of depth and makes for some cool looking backgrounds. Most of the enemies are fairly generic looking shadow/ghost creatures, some of them are humanoid, others look like the top half of skeletons, there’s even one that looks like a dark version of Celia. Battles are signified by the sounding of a gong, and when you hear that sound Celia is then sealed into the area that she’s currently occupying (usually one to three screen-lengths) until she finishes off a preset number of baddies that can range from one to several. Combat was a little awkward at first, I wasn’t expecting the closed-off nature of the battles, and the controls are a bit floaty, but I got used to it pretty quickly.

The game has an old-school Castlevaina feel to it, Celia runs, jumps and slashes her way through the very castle-like city of Ark. There are switches to hit that open up new areas and a bit of backtracking, but other than that Ark of Sinners is a pretty straight forward action game. I found some parts of the game somewhat challenging, but I never felt that the game was unfair or that I couldn’t push through the difficulty. The gameplay though not spectacular was for the most part entertaining and fun.

While the game is pretty simple I think that the thing that kept me playing was the overall design and tone of Ark of Sinners. As I mentioned before the artwork is really top notch. It kept me wanting to view the next cut scene and see the next little bit of story. The level layouts while not complex were interesting enough to hold my attention. The Gothic style music is just right too, I only wish there was more of it, as the scant tracks looped far too quickly.

After all was said and done I really enjoyed Anima: Ark of Sinners. It’s not without it’s faults, but it gave me value enough for the ten bucks I spent on it, and there aren’t many (or any) new WiiWare titles I can say that about.

In the year 2099, Evil Scientist Extraordinaire (TM) Walter Sloan stumbles onto a way to alter history to his liking. Alchemax, Sloan’s company, rises into notoriety as a revered superpower. Future Spider-Man Miguel O’Hara sees something’s going down and sets about using the stored DNA of Peter Parker, also known as the Spidey of yesteryear, to see through the threads of Sloan’s evil plot and unravel it before it can come to fruition. Sounds complicated, right? It’s probably the most convoluted part of the game. The rest is quite simple and straightforward; a time-transcending adventure with little heart and little reason to soldier on.

You’ll often find yourself manipulating situations both as 2099 Spidey and “present” Spidey, switching between the two at will. Except things cease to be interesting from there. Most of your time spent as Miguel is exerted as you explore air ducts and the bowels of skyscrapers. You really don’t have enough room to manuever in these buildings so too much webslinging is out of the question, making Edge of Time feel much more restrictive than the other two games previously mentioned. Past Spidey feels the most fluid, retaining familiar movesets and attacks you should remember from Web of Shadows, at least, and he’s now got ultra speed. Future Spidey can sidestep attacks and leave doppelgangers for the dumb-as-hammers enemies to attack. While both Spideys feel well and control tightly, the luster quickly begins to wear off, especially when you realize you’re not actually accomplishing a lot when switching between the two heroes of different eras.

In fact, you’ll usually only need to switch to unlock a door, eradicate a piece of the scenery, or to access an area that one hero could not, for one reason or another. For a game entirely built around the premise of time, this came off as more than a little lazy and underwhelming. It’s an interesting mechanic to be sure, but nothing to write home about when you realize how empty it really is. As an aside, combat is also mightily repetitive, relying heavily on combos and button-mashing to clear an area of enemies. Yawn.

At the very least, visuals are lush and cartoony, and excellent voice acting makes up a smidge for what feels like the longest Spidey game yet, and I don’t mean that in a good way. You can finish the abridged campaign in four to six hours, and there are plenty of unlockables, but in all honesty it’s just not that interesting to stay in it for the long haul. I didn’t find Sloan’s plight to be immediate in any way, and being Spidey in enclosed areas feels even less like being Spidey than sneaking around in Shattered Dimensions. Here’s to hoping the next Spidey game takes a page from Rocksteady’s success and brings us an admirable glimpse into actually being Spider-Man.

Before I dive into this, let me quickly put on my flak jacket.

Ok. As the story goes, by some cosmic joke I was still on the list at Eidos to receive updates and future releases for Deus Ex: HR, a game that I have openly and actively determined to be a disappointment of grand scale unlike anything else I’ve seen. Watching as the the company struggled with excuses for why the gameplay lacked real punch was fun for me over time until I became so bored with all of it that I walked away, secure in the knowledge that Deus Ex : HR has more of a chance at being nominated for PC GotY than the far superior Witcher 2 title. Hooray American culture. So why did they give me the DLC? Was it some attempt to sway my view of the rebirth of the IP as a whole? Have they changed enough to really make Deus Ex the astounding “anything goes” game that they claimed it could be? Short answer is…no. Long answer, of course, would have to be noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

For More Information…

If you need more information than what a clear and concise “no” can achieve, I guess I can rationalize my disappointment again. Not like it matters. I’m merely setting myself up for the oncoming tide of fan-gasms as they scurry to defend their monolith of grand epic-ness.

Issue one. We’ve brought this up in a few Herocast episodes so far, but the fact that this DLC is of grand importance to the overall story really puts another bad mark against Eidos as a brand. Though this wouldn’t have helped the gameplay, it would have put a better ground on what the hell I was looking at in the final boss room of the game. I wouldn’t have had such a grand disconnect with all of it.

Issue two.  Did you really think you could get away with triple layered back tracking Eidos? On several occasions during the mission, Jensen would come to an impasse that required him to go a ways back through the level to either retrieve something that was already there or talk to someone. Of course, if you killed everyone already this was a boring task that meant nothing on a grand scale. Thankfully, due to my ingenuity of holding skill points until needing them, I was able to maximize my movement abilities to overcome the boring pilgrimage to places I’ve already been. I found that I didn’t need to use the points for anything else anyway. Early on I found a silencer for my pistol, so I just let the extremely stupid AI herd itself into my bullets for instant kill head-shots. The stealthiest of stealth. Use corpses as distractions, then kill the people looking at them.

Issue three.Way to boil my choices down into seemingly meaningless events Eidos. Do I want to save a cryo-pod person or not? What do I get if I do? A discount at the shop. Cool. Do I kill the scientist or a room full of civilians? Barring the insanely unbelievable premise of why this is even a choice, why does it matter? This is a prequel, meaning the follow up parts of the game already happened. The story is already set in stone, unless you plan on rewriting it all. Same issue I had with the games ending. It didn’t matter what I picked, the outcome already occurred.

Positive one. Running the game in DX11 didn’t have severe memory leaks like the build I played, so good job on getting your programming together I guess. Now if only the game was worth all that effort.

Overall, I still understand that what I have to say on this will only matter in a small scale. For the most part people already seem to have made up their minds on the quality of Deus Ex : HR. I don’t see this swaying any of those opinions. But maybe if I can save the one or two people from wasting any money at all on this grand atrocity against the integrity of gaming, I’d be ok with that.

This flak jacket feels comfy. Think I’ll wear it for a little bit.

Deception follows the journey of Blackwell heroes Rosa Blackwell and Joey Malone, Rosa’s ghostly companion straight out of the 1970s. Together the dynamic duo work to send spirits who have not yet come to terms with their death to the afterlife. You could say they’re doing the work of Reapers as in Dead Like Me. Both personalities play well off of each other, and Joey brings most of the sardonic humor to inject a little life into what could otherwise fall flat as just another supernatural adventure. Rosa and Joey’s unlikely partnership is reminiscent of Sam and Max; the same playful jokes and dynamic. It works well, and I wanted the characters to succeed.

In this go-around, Rosa and Joey are tasked with uncovering the secrets behind an underground ring of NYC street psychics. Through their investigation they uncover some unsettling deaths and expose the seedy underbelly of some of these psychics, as well as some secrets from Joey’s past. As someone who is not as well-versed in the Blackwell history and having just experienced a crash course through the first few games, I initially felt as though I were ultimately missing out on some of the larger pieces of the puzzle, but after the initial researching of Rosa and Joey’s characters and partnership, I quickly settled in for the engaging and rewarding story, which never felt too reliant on inane puzzles to move along.

Deception is a by-the-book point-and-click adventure with a retro flavor that encompasses every single facet of its being: from the graphics to the game mechanics (inventory system, both Rosa and Joey must be utilized to progress), and while the character portraits are full-color traditional images they mesh well with the lower-res environments. Rosa and Joey have unique abilities: Rosa can interact with the physical world and Joey is relegated to passing through locked doors, blowing on things, etc. since he does not have a tangible body. You can switch between the two characters whenever necessary and since most puzzles can be solved simply by determining which character you need for a specific situation, the plot moves along nicely and is not bogged down with extraneous side-quests or silliness that plagues many modern titles. Rosa’s smartphone, equipped with the “Oogle” search function, is especially useful when information is required, rather than in the previous games needing to regress back to Rosa’s apartment. It’s a cute nod to modern conventions in the midst of such a retro throwback.

As a point-and-click adventure fan with more than a little experience under my belt, I still found Blackwell Deception to be a formidable selection with a memorable cast of characters, locales, and history, even though I hadn’t finished all of the prior games. The insight into Joey’s past was well-appreciated, but I would have liked to see a little bit more of Rosa as well. Crisp graphics, intuitive gameplay, and a well-paced story were the ultimate rewards here. I enjoyed my time with Rosa and Joey, and I surmise you might as well.