Catherine

Catherine offers exactly what the Videogames industry hasn’t been able to offer in a while – something fresh! Nowadays it is such a huge risk for a developer to come up with a new idea or new concept for a videogame. Developers and publishers tend to go for the safe options – new episodes of well-established franchises, or a new game based on something already proved successful. I take my hat off to Atlus, not only for taking the risk, but also for being successful at it, having created something truly unique.

In its core Catherine is a puzzle game, but as a whole, this game is an experience quite difficult to describe. The game takes place in two different dimensions – you either spend time in the dreaming dimension, in which you will come across the puzzle solving levels, or you spend time in an Anime-like world, building up your character and defining his opinions towards his love life. In the latest, it is like you are put into an Anime series. You mainly go to the bar with your friends, have some crazy dialogues about the nightmares you’re having and get drawn into the most important choice of your character’s life – which lover to pick? Will you go with the love of your life – Katherine – or this new, young and sexy crazy girl – Catherine? The choices you make during the game will directly influence the outcome of it, so it’s only normal that game has several different endings.

When it comes down to the puzzles, this game offers some of the most challenging and difficult levels I have ever played in my life. Even if you play it in the easy mode, expect some frustrating moments yelling at your TV screen. But making it difficult is also what makes it interesting and rewarding. You basically have to push around blocks in order to create a path to arrive at the top. Throughout the game you will learn several different techniques of pushing blocks and climbing, earn new items that help you climbing, and face some of the craziest boss-levels that I have ever faced.

The graphics are simply beautiful and very well polished, with a bit of a dark humorous feeling to them, the gameplay is intuitive and addictive, the characters have some serious depth to them (at least for what you expect in a game of this type), and the storyline not only is smart, but also super funny. Finally, the Anime cut scenes are extraordinary and give the perfect complement to the in-game experience.

This is by far one of the most interesting and innovative videogames I have ever played. I’d say it requires a certain level of maturity for you to make the most out of it, and also a nice amount of patience. A very pleasant and rewarding surprise that is available at a very low price in stores.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii

It’s just amazing the way they turned the most famous single-player platform game into a clever, fun and addictive multi-player game. Yes it’s true, the multi-player here is only an option, and you don’t have to play it if you don’t want to, but believe me, the fun is multiplied by 1 million if you play this game with your friends. Expect the traditional 2D Mario gameplay that made this character the most famous plumber in the world, lots of power ups, hidden secrets and the usual boss fights at the end of each world. Even though we can make use of the “continues” when you get a game over, don’t think this is an easy game to beat, actually it kind of requires a good amount of skill for you to beat all the levels! The graphics are the way they should be, with nicely polished and animated scenarios, and the sound effects are just brilliantly adapted to every situation in the game.

It’s the old school Super Mario at its best level!

Resident Evil - Gamecube

The game was launched back in 2002, but only now, after buying a used Gamecube (big up to Miguel for the great deal!) to play some major classics, I got the chance to end this fantastic game. Without a doubt, this is the best game in the series. Expect nothing less than pure survival horror.
This Gamecube Resident Evil is a kind of a super remake of the good old first Resident Evil (1996) for Sega Saturn. Capcom improved the game in every single aspect and kept it as close as possible to the original storyline.

On contrary to the shitty versions (graphics are not all that matters) of Resident Evil for all those new generation consoles, here you still have that old-school gameplay. In this title you are not playing an action game as we were forced to from Resident Evil 4 onwards. Here you still have that feeling of not knowing what’s on the other side of each door, you still have to be smart when dealing with your items and you still have to take deep breaths along the game. Blasting zombies’ heads by itself just isn’t funny, and so Capcom invested a great deal of time on the traditional macabre puzzles. Seriously, there some mind-twisted enigmas to solve in this game, that really brought me to my knees!

The whole action takes place in a kind of a haunted mansion and its whereabouts. The scenarios are completely amazing with tons of details, and believe me, the screens I posted here do not make any kind of justice to the game as their quality is really low. The lighting and shadows effects look superb, and make you feel as if you were the one walking around the mansion. The soundtrack and all the sound effects are way better than those of 1996, and play a major part in setting the right feeling and environment throughout the entire game.

You will have to deal with several kinds of zombies (humans, snakes, sharks, plants, spiders, dogs, etc), which are now much more intelligent than the previous ones. The scaring tricks we are used to see in the movies are all here, from the oldest trick in the book of someone jumping out of a dark corner to grab your arm, to those complex camera angles that make you nervous when making a step forward. I must admit that I did jump out of my bed 2 or 3 times while playing at night!



A truly must have for everybody who’s into real good videogames. Pure Terror Cubed.

10 Videogames – 1 Life [Part 1]

The videogames presented here aren’t necessarily the 10 best ever, but they sure are the classics that meant the most to me. Even though I still am quite nerdy about videogames, I just don’t have the time to play them. Moreover, I do think that the best era of videogames has already finished, and I just don't get excited looking at the new titles coming to the market. They can have the best graphics, they can offer truly cinematic experiences, but they lack that feeling of addiction, the storylines just aren’t convincing enough, and most of all, there’s nothing really innovative coming to the stores. Whenever I feel like playing a real game, you’ll probably see me going back to the old classics, playing on 128/32/16 bit consoles.

Enough of this old conservative bastard talk. Let’s move on to the games.

The first game I have ever played. For many gamers around the world, it still is the most revolutionary game ever. I was never one of those Super Mario addicts that buy all different versions and every single sequel, but I could never begin this list without putting Super Mario Bros in first place.

Still on Nintendo, the Duck Hunt and the classic Contra were two of the games that I played the most during my childhood. I remember having a Nintendo gun and making competitions with my father hunting ducks and loosing several games in a row ahahah! Then I would invite some kids over to my place to spend hours playing the multiplayer version of Contra. We were probably in 2nd grade at school and all we wanted was to hear gunfire and destroy every single enemy across the different scenarios.

Then came the Christmas when my parents offered me the Sega Saturn. Euro 96 was kind of a shitty game, but it was the first football game that I really owned and the game featured the voice of Jorge Perestrelo – the first game ever with Portuguese commentaries. Duke Nukem 3D was one of my favorites for the Saturn. At the time it was the perfect shoot ‘em up! Hang around the city killing some alien pigs and giving money to the strippers to show us their alien tits! Ahahaha this shit was awesome, I was still a young kid and my mother would be pissed every time she saw me playing this “awful game”.

The games that came next were different in their content, were more complex, and many of them became real icons in the videogame industry.

(End of Part 1)