Game Review: Edge

EDGE Review:

 Creating more polygons than I can account for

Publisher: Mobigames

Developer: Two Tribes (PC), Mobigame (iOS)

Platforms: Android, iOS, Linux, Mac, Onlive,
 PSN & Steam 

Genres: Puzzle
Players: One

Release Date: December, 2008

Price: Around £3-£5.49/$3-$5

What happens when one takes a game from the platformer genre, keeps gravity intact, and takes away all jumping whatsoever? Why EDGE comes out of course. EDGE is a game on both iOS and Steam created by the studio Mobigame; the Steam version was published by Two Tribes. Two Tribes are responsible for the popular egg collecting game, Toki Tori.

 Edge consists of navigating a flashing cube across various obstacles to reach an end point. This is done by “rolling” the cube, in a sense, through grey and white alleyways, tunnels, and labyrinths, among other pathways; this is the core gameplay, but Mobigame throws in quite a few twists and turns to keep the game interesting, and above all, entertaining. The first of which is thrown in is the most obvious, shifting platforms, the staple of all platforming games. In this title, platforms will on their own, slide, ascend, descend, or follow predetermined paths. Most of these actions are automatic, the other case of these events are through the use of buttons strewn throughout the entire game. These buttons will trigger a variety of events which ranges from the simple one directional movement of a block to a completely orchestrated set a pathways in which the player must traverse. Along the way, the player will also pick up small cubes called prisms, which, in conjunction with a good time will display mastery of the stage.

              

 Through all of this mayhem, the player must learn to master a skill that will be persistently appearing in the game, and that is, as the name implies, edging. Edging is when the player moves in a direction and keeps the flashing little cube between falling back to rest and ascending to the next height. Haven’t mastered the concept yet in the game, or don’t know when to use it? Fear not, because the game offers hints through floating question marks that will show a ghost image of your cube and guide it through the given obstacle.

The controls in the game are very simple, and incredibly solid. On a keyboard, they consist of the up, down, right and left arrow keys. This can prove to be a bit confusing at first since the game is in an isometric view, but one should be able to pick up after getting their bearings within the game. If the default of up going northeast is too troubling, in the options, up can also be set to northwest. The title also supports the use of an Xbox 360 controller as well.

The game offers forty-eight stages which the player must trek through, in which the difficulty will ramp up gradually in which there won’t be an incredibly difficult challenge until about stage 20 or so, and up. It’ll begin with the moving from point A to point B with little to no trouble. The game will gradually add more twists and turns, such as timing when to roll onto a platform to continue progress. Buttons will also be added in gradually, but it’s not the general use of buttons which can prove to be difficult, but what they trigger. They can be as simple as pushing you in the direction of the goal, however, they can be downright nasty, and trigger a set of blocks to push the cube off the edge and the player will have to think fast and move swiftly in the hopes of not falling off.

All in all, the game is a great package, now with an “extended” set of levels to keep the entertainment going after beating the initial forty-eight stages, and this title will sufficiently entertain those needing to burn about a half hour.

- Kevin Morrison

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Carpe Fulgur LLC: A war against Engrish

What is the problem with the general English speaking population when it comes to Japanese games? More often than not, it seems to be the language barrier.

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To save or not to save?

Saving, it has been an integral part of gaming ever since it was first used. Rudimentary incarnations of it came in the form of passwords, where one would enter a series of characters to enter a specific point in the game. 

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Gaming Feature: Freshly Ground Pokémon

Grinding - A tedious tale of repetitive leveling

Around the internet forums I usually frequent, there’s a specific season that goes around, every time a new entry in the series is released, the forums will have a tendency to become more interconnected than usual; I don't mean people taking a slight interest back in the game, it gets pretty hardcore there. Soon after, I guess I get swept in all the fun as well. Two important things were realized after restarting my journey to become the top trainer: the game is addicting, and there is grinding galore. The two main questions that would come to mind with novices would be, what is grinding in Pokémon, and what significance does grinding play in the overall scheme of the game? First of all, Pokémon, to those who may not know what it is, is an RPG where you catch, train, and even trade creatures in order to have them battle later. The answer to the second question is that the definition of grinding can only be called so under the following conditions:

• It's an incredibly repetitive action within the game

• The action itself is not the goal

• The action is incredibly cumbersome to perform

The grinding within Pokémon is viewed at two different levels. The first level of grinding is common in most RPGs, random battles. Battles constitute the backbone of Pokémon; random battles with wild Pokémon is a means to achieve your goal of winning the next battle by gaining the upper hand knocking out wild Pokémon. The second level of this is ironically, more socially based than the other, it involves the exploitation of the game's mechanics, which are Effort Values (EV's) and Individual Values (IVs).

To make Pokémon battle to the best of their ability, it is required to keep an eye on these factors at all times. Unfortunately, they're not available for display within the game and it's required to go on the internet and search how to best utilize these mechanics. In most cases this would be easy, but the fact that Pokémon is a very complex game in this sense, actually to the point where it seems a bit random, it takes a bit of luck to get what you want and incredible determination to achieve your goal. Of course there is a plethora of other things to keep track of, but for the sake of keeping things concise, I'll go into the most popular mechanics of the affair. There is no way to avoid this, unless the Pokémon end up failures in battle. This is the trade-off for such a time consuming task. On average, I used to take about 8-12 hours each day raising one or a throng of Pokémon, only to gain 20, maybe 30 levels on a good day.

From what was described, the game sounds shallow and incredibly boring, doing nothing but grinding for the sake of a battle, although, these games can be fun if you enjoy mathematics and manipulating numbers. But in conclusion, playing Pokémon is a great experience if you grind hard for your goal of a real battle; it seems weird, but thoroughly enjoyable for those of us who have time on their hands and a Nintendo DS in their pocket.

- Kevin Morrison

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Engraved Metal

AKA: Engraved

Genre: Heavy Metal

From: Turriff, Scotland

Performing since: 2008

Facebook/Reverbation/Youtube

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