uacamelee! is a unique and humorous 2D side scrolling action platforming exclusive tile on the PlayStation Vita developed by DrinkBox Studios. Guacamelee! features fantastic combat and platforming puzzles to create a fun experience.

The game also features Cross-play functionality between PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita.

As always, I will discuss the presentation of the game, gameplay, trophies and overall verdict. Let’s begin.

Presentation:

Guacamelee! shines across the board with its unique and funny theme. The art is beautifully drawn and animated. The graphics is smooth as butter and stays at a beautiful 60 Frames-Per-Second on the Vita’s awesome LED screen. As you keep on playing you will visit areas with different background themes. The developers did a phenomenal job at keeping everything consistent while changing the styles of the levels all throughout the game.

The story in Guacamelee! is nothing new or original, but it gets the job done. You play as Juan Aguacate whose objective is to save the El President’s daughter from the Evil Charro Skeleton. The game takes place in a small village, in Mexico. The village is filled with unique and quirky characters that can be interacted with to activate side quests. Thanks to Guacamelee’s charming art-style and personality the story makes the adventure humorous and a little bit exciting along the way.

The soundtrack is most likely one of the best I’ve heard in a long time. Each level in the game has its own theme song, so you are never stuck with listening to the same music over and over again. The tunes are catchy, and a joy to listen to. It’s going to be one of those video game soundtracks that will be stuck in your head for years to come and remind you of how gorgeous and fun this game was back when it was released. I have absolutely no complaints regarding the game’s overall presentation, graphics or it’s sound design.

Everything is so well put together that it just creates one ultimate package that genuinely makes this title stand out on its own and be different from everyone else thanks to the game’s great production values.

Gameplay:

The gameplay in Guacamelee! combines unique platforming sections and fun combat mechanics all throughout the whole adventure. The game’s structure is centered on a hub-town where you can talk to different people to get unique side quests to unlock trophies. However, you can just completely ignore all the miscellaneous stuff and just move on and follow the main quest-line to complete the story.

Following the main quest-line will lead you to a particular level with a ton of challenging platforming sections, combat zones and hidden areas that contain coins, health and stamina upgrades. As you play through the game, you will come across a goat man that gives the character special abilities such as; head-butting attacks, dashing, flying across an area by launching yourself from a wall and more.

These unique abilities also add more depth to the combat system of the game. Thanks to the game’s beautiful animations it’s a ton of fun to try to chain combos on enemies and just enjoying the show of how fluid the combat system is. It feels visceral and engaging.

The player is free to explore the level at their own pace before they decide to face the main boss of the area. Players will come across shops that act as quick-save checkpoints and vendors. In these shops, you can buy upgrades for Juan’s health, stamina and other neat things.

This game is filled with a ton of secret areas. If you want to unlock everything in the game and get all the hidden chest, maximize your character upgrades, collect secret orbs and unlock all the trophies then get ready for a lot of revisiting.

Trophies:

Trophies in Guacamelee! are for the most part straight-forward. It will take around 10-15 hours to get the platinum. Once you beat the game first time you will unlock ‘Hard Mode’. Beating the game on Hard Mode grants you another trophy towards your platinum requirement.

Players will also be required to complete side-quests in the game, find hidden orbs and all of the hidden chests throughout the entire game. Purchasing everything from the checkpoint vendor shops will also unlock a trophy. Overall the trophies are fun, they are not super hard or too easy, instead they are just perfect in my opinion as far as the difficulty and time consumption is concerned.

Overall:

Overall Guacamelee! is one of the best exclusive indie games I have played since PixelJunk Monsters. I really enjoyed the game’s art direction, animations, catchy soundtrack, engaging combat, excellent gameplay all throughout the entire course of the game and cross-buy is a plus. At $15 Guacamelee! is a must buy and well worth the price. I deeply hope that Drink Box Studios will make a sequel because if they will I will get it in a heartbeat.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation Vita.

The Gameplay and Content

MLB 13: The Show packs a whole lot of new content for baseball fans to enjoy and the game also introduces something called “Beginner Mode”. Beginner Mode makes the game much more accessible to newbie players who have played any of the previous MLB games. It’s a fantastic feature that you can turn on and off, when you play the game it makes everything easier. However, the better you get at hitting the ball, or pitching the harder it gets later on. The system adjusts difficulty of the game on the fly, if you learn quick how to play the game and get better at it, then the difficulty will start noticeably become harder.

If you are more of a slower paced learner and it takes you time to get good at something then the difficulty won’t be bumped up as much. Thanks for beginner mode, it makes the game much more less intimidating for those are interested in trying out the series for the first time and it also makes it a lot more interesting as the challenge gets harder.

MLB 13: The Show has finally created a Post-Season mode. Main purpose of this mode is to let the player jump straight into Post-Season without having to wait for the actual season to be over. You can play Post-Season with either 1 team or all of the 10 teams, it will also track your entire run of the games into the World Series. You may play Post-Season in single-player, head-to-head, co-op play and the game supports PlayStation Move if you’re interested in playing a different way. A lot of players have been asking for a game mode that let’s them just jump straight into post-season and the developers of MLB have finally made that dream come true.

For first time players will be able to play Online Home Run Derby mode cross-platform on their PS3 and PS Vita if they wish. The only biggest drawback of this is that Online Home Run Derby is the only mode that you can play cross-platform. PS Vita version is not included in the PS3 version, you have to buy them separately. Its kind of unfortunate , because the developers had a great opportunity to take an advantage of cross-platform play and it would let them sell more copies if they included the PS Vita version with the PS3 version, however that is not the case here.

As far as the game mode itself, it’s a ton of fun if you just like playing to make home runs and see how many you can get with your favorite player. You can choose different team stadiums to play on, pick any players how many rounds you want to go for. MLB 13: The Show packs pretty much every MLB team you can think of with all the major players in them. If you ever wanted to know what it feels like to score a crazy amount of home-runs with any of the Yankee players in a home-run derby, then here is your chance.

The Show Live mode is one of the more interesting game modes. This mode let’s players play exhibition-based games that are taken from MLB.com, it lets you play real world matches. The Show Live updates calendar event takes and new things on daily basis, as soon as you see an upcoming match on the calendar it will tell you which teams are playing and what players have taken which positions.

All of the statistics will be provided, that includes commentaries on previous match ups and everything else you can think off. Have you missed a favorite match that you wanted to play-out ? You can scroll back the calendar dates and play any of the matches that been played in the past. This is great stuff for the baseball fans.

Road to the Show  is another great addition to the game. This mode is quite unique compared to others, it let’s you create a custom player, choose his position in the game and of course let’s you pick a team. What different about this mode is that the whole thing is based on a single baseball player and you play as that person on the field. The camera views are completely different and you have control over him depending on whatever position you picked. You can make him to be the guy who’s a batter, pitcher or just a dude who chills on the 3rd base trying to catch a ball. For MLB 13: The Show RTTS recieved the most upgrades, better camera views, addition of leaderboards, a full revamp of audio/game presentation flow and new controls for baserunning and fielding.

New to MLB 13: The Show is the Season mode, Season mode let’s you play out an entire season with 1 or all of the 30 teams. You can play this also play this in co-op if you wish for a more social experience even though you’re going against an AI. The goal of this gameplay mode is to start a season at Spring Training and get your teams to the World Series.

The Franchise mode is the same for the most, expect with the addition of a new training system and a few other small things. The new training system let’s you pick what you want the player to be constantly training at throughout the course of the season as you play. Franchise Mode is more for player that like team management, you can fire/hire people, trade players with other teams and so on. If you like think that game managing is more of your style of baseball play then this is the mode that I’d recommend you play.

League mode is similar to the franchise mode expect that it’s online and much more social. You can create or join a league and have up to a total of 29 other plays join you in your conquest for the World Series. The League owner plays the same role as the GM in the franchise mode. The GM can kick people from his team, invite someone else, create a league lobby for people to socialize and so on. The new additions to the League mode is the scheduling system, new creation options, manual advancement, a new way to view game history and the ability to scrimmage against opposite league players.

Diamond Dynasty 

Diamond Dynasty is one of the core multiplayer modes in MLB 13: The Show. Diamond Dynasty lets players create a custom team from scratch, give it a name, location and of course let’s you customize every single team member on the roster. The team customization is really robust, you can create your own custom logo with a full logo editor, your “Away” and “Home” uniforms and so on. For the players you can change their first and last names, change their physical looks and even give them any player numbers.

You will probably spend a good few hours or so just customizing your team and making everything from the start. One of the most unique things about this game mode is that you also have something called “Budget Bonus”. Budget Bonus are points that you can earn as you play the game and complete certain in-game set of achievement goals (Not PS3 Trophies).

Once you have a achieved certain goal you will be rewarded a set amount of budget bonus points depending on the achievement, you can then later use these points to invest in your players individual and train them to become better at whatever it is that you desire.  You can also of course just manage your roster in general, change up player rotations and so on.

There is also something called Dynasty Player and a MLB Player. Dynasty Players are you’re long-term investment players that you train over a long periods of times, MLB players are something that you can activate and use right away using the MLB collection cards and usually are used for quick and short term plays.

You can trade, buy, sell collection cards with other players, or you can purchase packs of cards via PlayStation Network by using budget.  At the beginning you’re pretty much forced to use your custom created team, but once you start earning budget by pitting your team against a computer or head-to-head versus play online. You can also buy stadiums and train your players.

The ranking in Diamond Dynasty works just like the Elo system that is currently implemented in many popular online multiplayer competitive titles. MLB 13: The Show is no short of providing a robust multiplayer experience the developer has thought of pretty much everything they possibly can and executed it very well. Diamond Dynasty will last you a while, if you’re a huge fan of the previous series and cannot wait to get started on competitive online baseball play then this is your answer.

Every five games you play your team will be re-evaluated for placement in one of the five divisions, the five divisions are: Spring Training, Season Series, Division Series, Championship Series and World Series. So depending on how good you play you will always be re-evaluated every fifth game for a new placement.

Customization

The amount of customization in MLB 13: The Show is quite overwhelming. You can create and customize your own roster, modify sliders and even edit every single baseball player’s animations. Sliders allow you to change things like solid hits, contacts, power, timing, foul frequency, pitching, and plenty of more things. This basically makes the game completely editable, if you are looking to farm trophies then you come in here and chance sliders towards your favor.

Every slider is also separate for the human and computer controller, you can basically make your players have the lowest amount of possible foul plays and have the best hitting power and pitching while completely making the CPU weaker. This is awesome, if you’re having a hard time playing the game, you may mess around with these settings to make the game more easier or harder for yourself. The roster customization lets you can edit any of the teams and pick which the players pitching rotations and lineups. Overall the customization is pretty deep, you can also customize very specific things in some of the game modes if you wish.

Presentation

MLB 13: The Show is most likely the best looking baseball game you’ll ever play today. Not only does it look fantastic and plays well, it’s also presented in a great manner. Good looking menus, fitting soundtrack and in-game visuals are all well done. Everything from characters animations, sound effects and character models look and sound all top notch. The only small complain is the way the crowd looks. The crowd is completely 2D and it makes the game almost look like an older sport game where they didn’t have the technology to support more detailed crowds. This is a bit disappointing because it ruins the overall presentation in the stadium as you play the game. Everything looks great in the game and then when you see the crowd you just want to cringe a little bit.

Overall

MLB 13: The Show is the best baseball game on the market period. The game provides different ways of playing it, it allows you to edit the game that suits your personal play-style and the overall flow of the baseball games. If you’re a person who just enjoys a robust single-player baseball experience then there is plenty of ways to satisfy that hunger with the amount of game modes and customization this game provides. If players are looking for a deep competitive system then they can find that in the Diamond Dynasty mode where they can developer their own custom-made team as time progresses. Thanks to the game’s overall slick presentation, outstanding depth this game will keep the baseball fans busy for a long time to come and possibly until the next season starts which will be on the PlayStation 4.

The game was reviewed on the PS3.

ynasty Warriors returns again in Dynasty Warriors 7: Empires. The Empires franchise of Dynasty Warriors series is geared towards more political and strategic battles rather than your regular Dynasty Warriors game. However, it wouldn’t be a Dynasty Warriors game without dozens of enemies, bases, and officers to conquer on screen at a time. Empires is a bit more complicated than the regular Dynasty Warriors games, only because of its strategic and political nature, and with that being said I will be explaining the core mechanics of this game in greater detail.

Gameplay Structure

When you begin the game, you choose which officer you want to play as and conquer the kingdoms. There are more than 50+ officers you can choose from, each officer has a his/her own fighting style, some are very good at dealing a lot of damage, while others are super fast but deal a lot less damage and then you have the ones that are in the middle. If that’s not enough, the player can create their own custom officer in a mode called Edit. Edit mode allows you to create your own personal officer. The play may choose armor sets, voices, tattoos, customizable physical appearance and of course different fighting styles. Later in the game, you can also unlock and buy new armor sets and weapons.

Dynasty Warriors 7: Empires is an interesting beast, it combines role-playing as a nobody who can either join in with another famous ruler to conquer the kingdoms, or you can befriend someone and then backstab them later and take every kingdom for yourself. The whole point of the game is that you’re a Chinese general who’s main goal is to conquer the entire land, whether it be through an alliance, betrayal or of course all out war with everyone else.

The game achieves this goal by introducing a system called  Fame. Fame has multiple ratings that you can choose, the player may choose from Brave, Evil, Wise, Kind, Orderly and Affluent, each path grants you something called strategems. Strategems are these different abilities that you can unlock as you level up your Fame, each path of Fame has many different types of stratagems. You may use these stratagems when you are in an actual battlefield, one of the strategems lets you lock gates to your base so that the enemy won’t be able to assault your camp.

You can level up Fame rating by either political choices when you take a turn or on the battlefield depending on which kingdom you decided to defend or attack. There will also be times when a different ruler will ask you to join them on the battlefield to destroy an enemy officer and take over their main base, you have the right to decline or accept. As a general you can sign contracts with different people that grant you different bonuses to yourself and your troops. Players can also talk to other leaders in the world and earn more experience for their Fame rating based on which officer they’re talking too. During a scenario, there also will be a time when you will be able to change your main Fame rating to a different one.

However, if you’re playing on easy difficultly they’re not that important or really helpful for that matter, they were designed for harder difficulties and they can help out a great deal. It’s a good system, it’s interesting and it adds a  lot replay value to the game. One of my officers I went fully Brave Fame, once I was done with a scenario I made a new officer and decided to go Affluent the 2nd time around. Each Fame gives you a different ending once you have finished a scenario and there are trophies to be earned for each of the Fame rating.

The game is pretty deep, when I first started playing it I was really overwhelmed by the sheer volume of things you can when it comes to the political and strategic choices. Once you spend a decent amount of type with the game you will slowly start to understand how the game works and what benefits you the most.

Presentation

Dynasty Warriors 7: Empires has great Japanese voice acting, the soundtrack is as fitting as it always have been. If you’re looking for that good old Dynasty Warriors music, you’ll find it plenty of it here and that is a good thing. However, the has some graphical issues, as you play the game you will be seeing a lot of low-resolution textures, soldiers pop in the far distances along with the environmental objects. While the framerate is steady majority of the time, I couldn’t help but to cringe at the overall graphics of the game. There is no excuse for this game to look this bad, especially this late in the console generation cycle.

Overall

This is not a bad game by any means, if you can manage to look past the graphical problems of this game then there is fun to be had. Thanks to the great combination of politics, strategy, Fame system with its stratagems,  huge list of officers too chose from, Edit Mode and of course the classical gameplay of Dynasty Warriors on the battlefield. There is a good game to be played here, whether you’re a fan of the series or a newcomer. If you’re a loyal fan then I would strongly recommend you buy this game, if you’re new to the franchise then you should decide for yourself if you want to give it a whirl.

The game was reviewed on the PlayStation 3.