A Wolf Among Us

 

I have spoken before about my love of Telltale Games.  Their point and click creations are as intriguing as some of the best books I've read.  A Wolf Among Us is one of their typical five episode games that came to the Xbox 360 back in 2013.  It's based on the comic book series Fables, the stories of classic fable characters like Snow White, Ichabod Crane, trolls, ogre, princes, etc who have chosen to live in the non-magical world.

I am not much of a fan of fairy tales or children's stories.  I personally much prefer a dark, adult plot with lots of realistic characters.  But the Fable comics and the Wolf Among Us game made we want to dive deeper into these old, classic stories.  Any game that makes me want to watch a Disney movie is pretty amazing.

The game follows Bigby Wolf (Big Bad Wolf) as he attends to the residence of Fabletown, a small community in the Bronx full of creatures glamored to look like regular humans.  What made this game/story so interesting is that there is murder, romance, prostitution, magic, cut throat politics, and even a bit of fetishism.  I don't want to go into too much detail because it's really hard to not give things away.

I just wanted to take this opportunity to express my love for this bizarre, complex game.  I encourage you to play it if you haven't already.  You will be pleasantly surprised.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

Putting my prejudice for nostalgia behind me, I sucked it up and played The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds.  This game hit all the right notes for me.  It reminded me of all the things I loved from the original game without cramming them down my throat.  The music, enemies, surroundings, everything was just right and kept me aware that I was playing a classic Zelda game.

Additionally, the developers made sure to advance the game forward, making it relevant today.  The graphics were hugely improved.  The learning curve and difficulty were much more balanced that previous titles.  There were more quests and collectibles which helped to make the game as short or long as you wanted it to be.

All too often, our generation clings to their childhood so hard that we all end up stuck with sub-par products.  I know people want to play a classic 8-bit game with terrible music and no save files, but some players want to see developers stretch the current technology and blow minds.  While A Link Between Worlds didn't break the mold as far as game design goes, it shows how easy it can be to make a game that serves to both old school and new school players.

Pneuma: Breath of Life

 

Pneuma: Breath of Life is a puzzle game with a charming, protagonist.  The player solves the puzzles in first person as the protagonist entity.  While bodiless and nameless, the voice of the playing entity is constantly talking.  As the game progresses, the voice goes from believing he is a god to believing he has no control in the world.

The game takes on this super bizarre, ultra meta feel.  The voice begins to speculate and even panic that the player is the real god.  He feels like he has no control and accuses the player of manipulating him.  At one point, the voice ends up at a lone tree in a colorless world as the player reaches for what is implied to be the apple of Eden.  There is a good chance I'm not smart enough to understand why the game goes so far as to vaguely reference the Old Testament.  I'm not a theologian or a philosophy major, so the whole concept is just too far out of my wheelhouse. 

The voice itself is really charming until the end when he loses his mind.  Between the English accent and quirky comments, it reminds me a lot of Wheatley from Portal 2.  I began to feel bad for him as he slowly loses his mind/realizes the presence of the player.

The game itself is short.  I completed all six chapters and cleared all achievements in about two hours.  The game looks amazing and plays really smooth.  With that in mind, it's hard to justify the $20 price tag.  It seems like a lot for something with almost no replayability that took two hours to complete.

If you have the chance to play it for free or at a reduced cost, it is definitely worth your time.  But if your only way to play is through the full $20 purchase, you might want to wait until it's on sale.

Telltale and Gearbox Give Me A Much Needed Break.

 
Tales From The Borderlands is one of Telltale Games' latest release.  It fits the typical description of any Telltale experience including an episodic narrative, point and click game play, and choice based storytelling.  Thankfully, Tales From The Borderlands brings a lot more enjoyment and lightheartedness.

One can easily say that they don't want to play Tales because they didn't like Gearbox's Borderlands or Telltale's flagship game, The Walking Dead.  I would argue, that Tales From The Borderlands is the perfect game for those people.  Don't like the fast paced yet somehow repetitive nature of Borderlands?  Tales is strictly story driven and doesn't require side missions or level grinding.  Don't care for the slow build and intense emotions that come with The Walking Dead?  Tales provides funny characters and almost as much quick button action as there is dialogue.

Do yourself a solid and buy the first episode.  Follow the ridiculous characters with their sophomoric humor on an adventure throughout Pandora.

Secret Footage Revealed

We here at Achievos are all about your entertainment...so we snuck behind the scenes and got this secret footage of Debbie dominating at CoD MW3.  She will destroy you.

Warning: Explicit Language Abounds

We're on Facebook!

Welcome to the 21st Century, am I right?  Join us on our Facebook page to keep up with our updates and other fun things.  We foresee giveaways using the Facebook page.  And albums of all our Achievo brethren gaming their hearts out.  Join us.  Love us.

Kevin WK Likes Dragons

If it's good enough for Kotaku then it's good enough for us.  Of course I am slightly partial to Kevin's videos, probably because I live with him.  But please believe me when I say that you are going to feel a lot sexier after watching this. 

Hi, I'm Captain Basch From .... Where ?

Those guys from Mega64 gift the world another classic clip.  As an intense fan of Final Fantasy, I found this video particularly entertaining.  I hope it brightens your dreary Tuesday like it has mine.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye !

It's a Trapp !!!

It's announcement time with just a couple quick reminders to start your week off right !  First up, our winner of the random package of PAX goodness is ...... Jimmy Trapp !  What did he win?  Jimmy will be receiving a t-shirt, some buttons, a sticker or two, and any other random item I feel like tossing in there; his dreams really are coming true.  Congratulations Jimmy !!!


Remember, we still have a lot of prizes left to give away including a free OnLive console !  We only had five entries for this last contest so your chances of winning in a future giveaway are great.  But the only way to win is to read and comment when the time is right !!!

Last, but certainly not least, that rascally bunch at Pixeldom.com are having another midnight launch event !  Go say hi to the crew from PixelsnPopcorn and the Sugar Gamers at the Game Stop at 2603 N. Elston here in Chicago !  They are kicking off the release of Batman: Arkham City tonight; prizes and good times await you.

Felicia Day Strikes Again

Felicia Day is amazing in the gamer-entertainment world.  Her first show, The Guild, is a great take on what it's like to be in a very involved, very disjointed guild on an MMO.  That show just wrapped season 5, and today she's posted a link that her newest venture, a take on Dragon Age: Redemption is now up.  The preview video is above, and the link to the first episode is here .

Where The Guild is pure comedy gold, Dragon Age appears to be written a little darker.  At the very least there's more bloodshed in this first episode than I expected.  Although this new show is actually based in the game world, where Felicia's character Tallis is a warrior, versus The Guild which was just normal people playing a game.

Whatever your fancy, check out Dragon Age: Redemption and The Guild.  (You can watch The Guild on their website, stream the first four seasons on Netflix, and see the latest season on Xbox's Zune app.)  Felicia is gamer gold, and, as far as I'm concerned, she's an Honorary Achievo.

Game Inspired Music Video

Think you're having a stressful day at the office?  Check out this music video from the band Biting Elbows.  The whole thing is inspired by the video game Mirror's Edge and its executed almost perfectly.

Hypest Game !!!

It is truly amazing what things people will record.  This guy shows us how to make Mortal Kombat even better with his soundtrack.  Thankfully, there is someone out there to keep the mood light with some well timed captions. 

A Literal Interpretation

Here's a whole new way to watch a game trailer:

Ezio and The Flea Market

Mega64 has some pretty edgy videos. And lucky us, most of them are about video games. Here is their real life interpretation of Assassin's Creed. Dig it. 

BLIZZAAAAAAAARD!

Here at Achievos, we love a good prank.  So when we first saw this super jerk-style friend change his buddies WoW password, we had to share.  Brace youself for some strong language.  Sit back and enjoy the slow simmer to boil as this dedicated WoW-er blows his lid.

Introducing Delicious Fillers with Extra Fluff !

Linz and I can't always find the time to write up full blogs every day.  We have decided to fill the gaps with fun tidbits.  We will post videos that we like, news bites, what we are playing that day, and anything else to keep up the flow.  We are also looking into guest bloggers.  So if you want to write something about topic we haven't covered, shoot us a line and let us know your idea.  

Sometimes, other people do stuff that is amazing and we just have to show you their genius.  With that in mind, I have linked a video below that I'm sure most people have seen.  If you like the game Portal, you are going love this short film interpretation.  Even if you have never played Portal, the clip is still hella cool.