Telltale Games has just revealed the above image on Twitter, teasing the release of new information about the second season of The Walking Dead point and click series. Fans of the game will recognise that hat instantly as the one belonging to Clementine. The rest of Telltale’s Tweet is just as recognisable: “Keep that hair short”.
Of course we already knew that Clem was going to feature in the second season of the game thanks to Telltale’s reveal at this year’s San Diego Comic Con, which also mentioned that Kenny’s fate would be explored. Yet to be revealed is the involvement of the characters from 400 Days, which had several different outcomes available to players with regards to who formed a group at the end of the game.
The news is scheduled to hit at noon Pacific time tomorrow for the States, which will equate to 6am on Wednesday morning for Australian fans.
Magicka: Wizard Wars is Paradox North’s upcoming free to play Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) title. The game is currently in closed alpha with purchasable tiers that will allow early access to the game amongst other in game bonuses. Magicka: Wizard Wars takes Magicka’s friendly fire enabled spell casting system and focuses it into a highly competitive PVP experience.
Magicka is a highly regarded indie action co-op title. Players went on a humorous adventure that left nothing safe from parody. The game introduced an incredibly fun spell system that allowed players to create spells by mixing up to five different spell effects. Co-op was made even more challenging as friendly fire is permanently on. Although there were several PVP arena maps in the original Magicka, the title’s main focus was on the co-op gameplay.
Sadly, most of the humour is gone in Magicka: Wizard Wars. The announcer does crack a few jokes about the player at the beginning and the end of the game, but that is it. I do hope that it will return in some greater form as the game progresses.
The biggest change in Magicka: Wizard Wars is the simplification of the spell casting system. Although players still have access to all eight spell elements, the player is limited to creating combinations of three versus the original five. To cast a spell, players mix and match three spell elements. The first element dictates the style of attack, while the next two modifies the type of damage dealt. For example, the spell combination lightning, lightning, and fire will cast a bolt of fiery lightning that will jump from player to player while dealing electric and fire damage. Wet players will take extra damage from the skill and dry players will be left with a burning damage over time effect. As players rack up kills, they can unleash one of four powerful skills called Magicks. These abilities can change the tide of battle when used. The four abilities currently cycle every few days.
Spells can be chained together to create interesting synergistic effects. For example, players wet from a water spell take extra damage from lightning and frozen players are vulnerable to rock based missile effects. Mixed with friendly fire, Magicka: Wizard Wars allows a well-coordinated team to steamroll the opposition.
Currently, there is only one map available in Magicka: Wizard Wars. Players are provided with three spawn points arranged in an upside down triangle on the map. Two teams of four are provided with 100 respawn tickets. To win, one team must cut off the other team’s ability to respawn, whether by forcing the other team to consume all 100 tickets or by controlling all three spawn points. To help defend spawn points, the controlling team will have two imps that will attack enemy players. The imps are rather squishy, so the best they can do is buy the defending team a little bit of time to rush to the defense of their spawn point.
Matches tend to be short, lasting 15 to 20 minutes usually. The shorter length helps diffuse one of the most frustrating elements of the MOBA genre, which is being stuck with a losing team for 30-40 minutes. Whether this will actually curb the infamous MOBA rage and poor player behaviour has yet to be seen as friendly fire is a big part of the Magicka series.
Magicka: Wizard Wars’ graphics are a significant improvement over the original Magicka title. The models, particles, and textures are visibly sharper. There were no graphical glitches or slowdowns in my experience with the alpha, which is a good sign for the future.
The current state of the alpha is true to form. The main gameplay elements have been implemented and work well. The game is surprisingly polished in its current state. The spells are well balanced. However, the team at Paradox North are currently struggling with connection issues in the game that need to be ironed out. As a free to play title, Paradox is relying on microtransaction to make a profit on Magicka: Wizard Wars. Currently, the store has yet to be implemented, so the only equipment available are the bonus items. Players can sign up for free for access to the open alpha at the official Magicka: Wizard Wars website. Codes will be given out as more slots open up in the alpha. For immediate access, players can purchase one of three tiers ranging from $12.99 to $49.99. It is highly recommended to pick up the $19.99 tier as it comes with a free copy of Crusader Kings II which is valued at $39.99.
Magicka: Wizard Wars is shaping up to be an excellent MOBA title that may entice those spurned by the long matches to give the genre another try. The game is in an excellent state of polish considering its alpha status. It is definitely worth a look for fans original Magicka and MOBA fans.
At this point in time the Pokemon X and Y3DS games have been out for, let’s say, two weeks and while a lot of people are most likely done with it, there are still a majority of people who are training up teams, battling with friends or preparing to hit up an Official Tournament. There are so many things to do once a Pokemon game has been completed; you can look for Mega Stones, find the Hidden Legendaries, hunt for Shiny Pokemon, etc. I, on the other hand, have been strictly working on levelling up my entire starting team to level 100 and, in Pokemon X and Y, it actually hasn’t been too difficult to do yet if you’re impatient like me then you’ll be glad to know that there are ways of speeding up the level-capping process while also keeping it enjoyable and without loosing those sweet and tasty extra stat boosts you get from EV training. While many people might already know this, I’m going to take you through what I find to be the easiest methods to levelling up your Pokemon Team.
SUPER TRAINING
While super training doesn’t exactly level up your Pokemon it does help add extra numbers onto stats when levelling up so I’m going to consider this as part of the process. I suggest that when you get a Pokemon, let’s say Aaron, you do a little bit of research on it’s final evolution, this will help you to determine how powerful it will be, what exactly it can be made to do, how exactly it will fit on your team and so on and so forth. It’s fairly essential to do this if you want a powerful team, you have to take species’ strengths and weaknesses into account as well as natures and abilities, it all adds up in the end.
Aron eventually becomes Aggron and while Aaron isn’t that great of a Pokemon, Aggron is so you’re better off putting in the time to make the final evolution even better. Aggron is incredibly defensive and has great attack yet lacks at everything else, by the advice that I read while researching I decided to Super Train my Aron in Speed and Attack knowing that it’s defences will already be outstanding. Now that I’ve done that I’ll get an extra Speed and Attack boost for every level I gain. This is what I would consider to be the foundation, don’t do anything else before you do this.
POKEMON-AMIE
While this aspect of the game does seem very reminiscent of Nintendogs it actually is a very useful little addition that will actually help you in the long run. Having your Pokemon like you in Pokemon-Amie means that not only will it give you a permenant +25% Experience boost but it will also help you in battle so you’re not always trading out or having to revive. Pokemon with full happiness will overcome status issues faster, they will land critical hits more often and, as I said just above, they’ll gain more experience.
There’s a certain method I use in Pokemon-Amie that seems to speed up the process a great deal: First you pat the Pokemon until it no longer gives of hearts, it will give off a black musical note, Second you feed it until it no longer wants any food and third you play a mini-game with it that should reset it’s hunger and petting levels so that you can repeat the process. If your Pokemon begins emitting a flurry of shinning hearts it means you’ve gone up a friendship level, keep going until you’re the best of buddies!
LUCKY EGG
This item is another essential alongside the Exp. Share which we’ll talk about soon. Before I even go on to explain it I’ll tell you where you can find it: Head to Coumarine City, there you’ll find Coumarine Hotel, within the Hotel there will be a girl with a Marill, talk to her and if your main Pokemon likes you enough she will give you the Lucky Egg. This item doubles the experience you get in battle if the battling Pokemon has it as a held item. This mixed with the extra 25 percent you get from having your Pokemon like you is a fantastic method to implement.
It’s an item that seasoned players would have used a lot in the past and it’s great to have seen them bring it back for us to use again. Don’t pass up this little guy because it’s a gem. Mixing this item with Experience Share (the item that I am about to talk about) works incredibly well considering how the Experience is distributed among your team but I’ll go into more detail about that soon enough. Change Lucky Egg’s holder constantly, I tend to place it on the Pokemon with the lowest level and I allow it to level and, hopefully, catch up to the rest of the team which, most of the time, it does.
EXP. SHARE
This is an item that you get early in the game regardless of what you do, it is just one of those items that gets given to you and it’s one of the best you’ll get in the game because it’s the one you’ll be using through the entire thing. This item has been improved in an incredible way; it now shares experience throughout your entire team and not just between the Pokemon battling and the Pokemon holding it. Like I’ve mentioned above; this item is used fantastically with the Lucky Egg (as well as all these other methods). The way that Experience is distributed with Experience Share is that the main battling Pokemon will receive 100% of the experience gained while the rest of the team each get 50% of the experienced gained which is already fantastic, now mix that with the use of a Lucky Egg with the item basically doubling the amount of experience a Pokemon gets.
It works out great and if you mix all these different methods together, which you can, with Experience Share you’ll be levelling like a League Champion in no time at all. Experience Share is also great to use while levelling a weaker team of low-level Pokemon; by having a strong Pokemon being the vanguard of your team and going up against the Elite Four, the weaker Pokemon will be levelling up like crazy with the large amount of Experience that would be gained from a League fight. It’s all very simple really, that’s probably why I understand it so well.
O-POWERS
O-Powers I find are very underrated with most people I know who play the game not even realising they could use it on themselves. There are O-Powers for almost every “boostable” aspect of the game and, much like Pokemon themselves, they can also be levelled up to be stronger. I just want to focus on one particular O-Power, that being the one that boosts Experience gained, didn’t think you’d see this one coming, right? You can find this O-Power a little later on in the game in Anistar City, more specifically; Anistar City’s Pokemon Center where you’ll find a man in a pale-pink suit who will make it available for you to use. Level One of this O-Power unlocks the potential for you to gain a boosted 25%, Level Two gives you 50% and Level Three gives you a whopping 100% boost.
I continuously use the O-Power specifically to level it up, I use it both on myself and I send it to friends who are training and the good thing is that, if they have it, they can send it to you so you get the boost for a short amount of time. Partner up with a friend so that you can go back and forth using the O-Power seeing as it costs less to send it to a friend than it does to use it on yourself. It’s these small exploits that will get you there quicker. By the end of a nice levelling session you’ll surely be up an O-Power level and so will your friend. Use the heck out of it, it’s there for a reason!
TRADE
Now this one is entirely up to you to do, it does help but I wouldn’t consider it to be an essential part of the process only because it can sometimes be hard to do, allow me to explain. A traded Pokemon naturally earns more Experience and, up until recently, I had no idea that was true but it has apparently been this way for a very long time and now that I do know about it you can bet I’ll be using it for my future team-raising exercises. If you have a good friend who you trust enough with a task and who knows something about breeding or actually Pokemon in general you can get employ them to help make you a team that is naturally suited to gaining more Experience.
Time is probably your worst enemy when it comes to this method because, while the game is mostly directed at children, a lot of adults will be training Pokemon properly and not all of us have a great deal of time to do so. If you can set a time for you and a friend to make each other some nice, low-level Pokemon then do so because, while not crucial, it does help the process and, I suppose, it’s also somewhat of a bonding exercise with your other Pokemon-playing friends.
WONDERTRADE
Ah yes, the dreaded Wondertrade, surprisingly this can actually help a great deal. While some people dabble in Wondertrade and are put off by others who tend to only offer a Bidoof or Zigzagoon, others are using this to their advantage and as a way to easily get a whole bunch of Rare Candies. With the implementation of the PSS system connecting with players locally and around the world has become so much easier and with a thing like “Poke Miles” being added to the game it gives one incentive to get out there and meet other trainers. Poke Miles are gained by Streetpassing other players and what not but the points earned are very low and don’t often make much of an impact.
The funny thing there is that meeting “Acquaintances” in the game also get you Poke Miles and the further you are away from the person you’ve met, the more points you get, that’s where Wondertrade is king. Start Wondertrading a great deal, the people you trade with will be added to you Acquiaintence list and they’ll also award you a bunch of Poke Miles which you can use to trade in for Rare Candy. In the South-Side Pokemon Center of Lumiose City you will find a man in a black suit who will trade you items for Poke Miles with one of those items being Rare Candies. There is no actual stock count which means you can buy as many as you afford and if you’ve already Super Trained, you still get those stat boosts so why not take the easy route.
To get the most out of these methods I suggest you do them all together or as many as possible together. They all, somewhat, work off of each other and when done properly the results can be easily seen. I’m definitely seeing the results now, I’ve just levelled up my original six Pokemon to level 100 and I’m about to start on another six. Pokemon X and Y has truly been revolutionary and it has really made levelling up so easy and so smooth which eliminates the need for cheating yet leaves room for methods like this to shine. I truly hope this helps you all in one way or another and if you have any methods of your own or any suggestions on how to level up, head down to our comments section below and let us all know what they are. Keep on training, Pokemon Masters!
Heretic Monk Volume 1 Author:Shinji Hiramatsu Publisher:eManga/DMG Release Date: September 24th, 2013 Price: $9.95 – Available Here
Overview
Monks are generally known for living quiet peaceful lives offering prayers for people in need, but this is not the idea behind Heretic Monk. Instead the Heretic Monk likes taking a much more hands on approach for helping those in need. Collecting the first 5 chapters of into the first volume, what does this monk have to offer those checking out this manga?
Story
In the very first chapter the idea behind Heretic Monk isn’t pointed out immediately, the reader is introduced to a girl seemingly in distress offering up a coin to the monk asking him to help her mother. Unfortunately, the girl is carted away by her mother’s sinister looking boyfriend, and the story goes into more information about what is going on in the household. While a little outlandish, one of the strong suits of the manga is that it does go into plenty of detail to not only to give a good idea of who the characters are, but insuring that readers are feeling exactly how the author wants about each character.
After painting the boyfriend into being a truly terrible person, the manga switches gears to delivering the moral message. The Heretic Monk shows up and details the past life of the bad guy, explaining how they died and going through carrying out the death again because that the soul has not changed its ways. While this is going on additional information is explained about specific turns of phrase in Japanese and where they derived from, generally related in some way to the past life. This is of course what makes the monk a heretic, actively killing these people to make them pay for their crimes.
This is just the first story however, the four others generally follow the same pattern, but does offer some variety throughout. Some past lives aren’t people from Japan, which provides a somewhat different insight so that those not as familiar with certain turns of phrase aren’t missing out all of the time. Likewise, the setup isn’t the same every single time either, there is some change ups in the formula even in these first 5 chapters, which is good to see else it would quickly become stale with only the short history lesson being one of the few highlights.
Artwork
For the most part the art style is very dark and shaded, with a lot of use of shadow and dark lines from the auras that different characters appear with, to the very detailed backgrounds that the characters are set in. Though the more detailed backgrounds aren’t utilized a tremendous amount, as panels focused on characters speaking or interacting tend to be much lighter with as little detail behind them as possible. In some ways this is an interesting contrast, but no matter what the darker detailed backgrounds are always a treat to see.
The characters in Heretic Monk have a much more manga-style look to them, with the bad guys looking over the top villainous much more angular or grotesque, while the monk himself has the fairly standard stoic look. The women in the chapters are for the most part shown as being attractive, except in instances where they are meant not to be, but with an adult male audience in mind this is somewhat par for the course.
Extra Content
This edition of Heretic Monk doesn’t have much to offer outside of the first 5 chapters and a nice explanation of how to read a manga right to left. There isn’t more from the author or more information of the characters from the short little history lesson that show up during each story, but there is at least plenty of different versions of the manga for whatever readers use to read their manga.
Overall Heretic Monk is an interesting story to story series akin to the style of Hell Girl with someone seeking justice or needing punishment. While there isn’t much for action the series doesn’t shy away from sexuality or violence, whether being inflicted to the evil reincarnates or by them. It does provide a nice perspective of Japanese culture, especially where certain phrases or sayings come from, as well as a few English ones. Those that aren’t put off by the sex and violence, who enjoy a one-shot chapter style should find something interesting and even somewhat educational.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Prepare for an outrageous zombie apocalypse, bigger than World War Z; as the dead have been awakened again to march through Archibald Fountain, Hyde Park this Saturday, November 2 at 3.30pm.
Sydney’s annual Zombie Walks have proved to be very successful in creating awareness and raising funds for Australia’s Brain Foundation since 2009, with the latest Zombie Picnic Invasion on April 13 this year.
For this event, Zombies are encouraged to wear their best walking dead suit, bring props (no realistic weapons), fake blood and all the more horror and gore!
Join the Sydney Zombie Walk 2013 by registering here for free and joining the official Facebookevent page for rules and regulations.
Hajime No Ippo – Rising Episode 4 – The Goddess Of Victory
This episode starts off literally exactly where it left off in Episode 3 (click here to see Episode 3 Impressions) with Aoki being stark-naked right after weighing in for the match as his challenger Imae walks into the room to see his full-frontal nudity. It contrasts the two fighters and also does a good job at both lightening the mood and causing the kind of tension you could cut through with a knife. Hajime No Ippo knows how to blend humour with aggressiveness and it does it well. The episode takes us through the final stages of setup before the big match for these two challengers and it also serves as a show of a divide between the two combatants, more-so than it did in the last episode.
The episode title “The Goddess Of Victory” was not named as such by accident, this episode shows us the lack of connection between Imae and his former-lover and the deep link between Aoki and his girlfriend, it also shows as what the two fighters believes to be the correct way to go about love and boxing; Aoki confides in his girlfriend, he looks to her for comfort and stability whereas Imae seperates himself entirely from his girlfriend so that he can focus solely on the fight. This episode, if you can’t already tell, is all about comparisons and works as a fantastic setup for a match where the audience can honestly not see the true outcome. Usually a fight within Hajime No Ippo can be forseen, the audience knows who will win and almost how they will do it but considering Aoki is not a title holder nor has he ever had a huge match like this, it can essentially go either way.
It’s also stated that he learned a lot of what he knows through loses so this could just be another loss…possibly. Imae spends the night before the match alone, studying all of Aoki’s previous matches while Aoki himself spends the night locked in carnal embrace with his sweetheart which, apparently, is NOT a good move before a big boxing match. Aoki brings Tomiko (his girlfriend) along to the fight and, once again, it proves to just be an addition of fuel to fire for Imae who sees the couple together before the match begins. Imae seems to be full of hate and resentment and Imae seems to want to be rid of those emotions, it’s tough for both fighters but you tend to feel for Imae. The episode also briefly focuses on the Gym’s rookie member Itagaki Manabu who wins his rookie fight just before Aoki and Imae are set to enter the ring for theirs.
The little addition was nice because you constantly see Itagaki training and you’ve never really seen him in the ring, I know for sure that he didn’t get too much spotlight last season so it’s just nice to see him in full view AND winning. The match is about to begin, Aoki begins preparations, he wears his “Victory Frog” jacket and hits the ring ready to take home the victory. Both combatants enter the stage with Aoki being a fan-favourite but it seems like the crowd only wants to see his patented “Frog Punch”, he doesn’t let their screams sway him though, rushing in will only force him into a loss. Imae stands at guard in the middle of the ring, barely moving a muscle as Aoki is bouncing and rolling just waiting for the right moment to strike but it doesn’t seem like he can see it. It’s the set up for an interesting fight and, like every week, I’m excited for this next episode. Check out more Hajime No Ippo – Rising Impressions HERE.
Last season we were introduced to a quirky yet incredible deep and powerful Anime known as Gatchaman Crowds. The new Anime was a rough remake of an incredibly old Anime/Cartoon and fans were glad that they didn’t take every last detail from the “camp” original series. Gatchaman Crowds was fantastically well-recieved and it quickly became a fan-favourite with the main character, Hajime, being too cute and bubbly to hate.
The ending to the last season was incredibly odd and, while still good, didn’t exactly wrap up the way a great deal of the title’s followers thought it would which, I suppose, is actually fine now considering season two of the Anime was just green-lit. The next season is already in production and is set to be aired, once again, on NTV with details such as airing dates and times not yet being released. Within the coming months we’re bound to see this second season take flight with an abundance of information being released at a nice pace…at least, that’s what I’m hoping for.
For now just revel in the fact that Gatchaman Crowds IS making a return…again…and hopefully it’s going to answer a lot of our, so far, unanswered questions. Stay tuned for all news and information to be released in the future.
If you’re a seasoned Anime fan that likes to keep up-to-date with the latest titles then I’m sure that you know of a little Anime called “Kill La Kill” and, whether you’ve been watching it or not, you’ll know that it is a compressed ball of crazy that will never stop bouncing. Now “Kill La Kill” is done produced by Studio Trigger, a studio filled with former Gainax employees who worked on other high-octane shows like “Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann” and “Panty And Stocking With Garterbelt”, fans of THOSE shows will know to try and take notice of everything on screen because a single blink could have you miss something fun and fantastic, which actually brings me to the point of this article.
Episode 4 of Kill La Kill titled “Dawn of a Miserable Morning” had a few little, well-known cameos in the background of one of it’s many crazed chase scenes, the characters shown were from the cult-classic Tarantino film “Pulp Fiction”. I actually cannot make this kind of stuff up! If you look closely during the scene where Mako’s Dad, Brother and their dog Guts are racing to get Senketsu to Ryoku you may be able to see Uma Thurman’s, Bruce Willis’, John Travolta’s and Samuel L. Jackson’s characters from the movie. While it, essentially, adds absolutely nothing to the story it does add a sense of excitement for viewers like me who are fans of both the Anime and the movie. It’s quirky, it’s fun and in the end it’s just making the series all that greater!
Crunchyroll have just made a major announcement regarding the future of their service. For years now, they have been known as the premier location for legal anime streaming, now they plan to take a major step forward for manga with the introduction of ‘Crunchyroll Manga‘.
The new ‘Crunchyroll Manga’ service will provide users of the site with legal manga reading, starting from October 30th, 2013. Kodansha Comics have announced their support of the service and will be providing Crunchyroll with 12 manga titles at launch, with a projected 50 titles added by Summer 2014. The following series will be available at launch:
It is certainly an impressive line-up for the service. Crunchyroll Manga will be available on multiple platforms, including computers, iOS devices and Android devices. The service will be availble to free users with ads and for Crunchyroll All-Access members without adds for a minimal fee.
Perhaps the biggest bit of news is that this service will be available in over 170 countries world-wide. Crunchyroll has yet to confirm all of the countries, but it is pretty likely that your country will be included given the immense number of regions it is available in.
Crunchyroll Manga launches on October 30th, 2013. Stay tuned for further updates on the service as it comes to light.
Fright Heights Developer:REDspace Publisher:Chillingo Platforms: iOS (Reviewed) Release Date: October 24, 2013 Price: Free – Available Here
Overview
There comes a time each year when packing in the ghosts and goblins actually seems seasonal. Some of the braver folks venture to the theater or their local movie collection and subject themselves to the most horrific, heart-pounding media they can. Luckily, Chillingo and REDspace are aiming to put you in the roll of scare commander just in time for Halloween. How is Fright Heights? Is it scary good or should it be locked in the monster closet forever? Let’s find out.
Gameplay
In a world where people are daft beyond belief (or easily subject to playground dares), everyone wants to stay in the hotels you’re in charge of. Beyond simply being creepy, many of these towers of terror are are in shambles, with rooms completely missing from some floors and more. Your job is to instruct your cadre of ghastly haunts and furious frighteners where to embed themselves and then, when there are enough guests on their floor, they need to frighten them all away!
At its heart, Fright Heights is a fairly straightforward puzzle game. You’ll have to work your way up fifty different towers which are basically just vertical grids. Along the way, the layout of each tower will change. Various levels of decay will have affected the buildings in different ways, giving you unique terrain to have to work through. You’ll only be dealing with five floors at a time and as you clear them from the bottom up.
Each floor has a required number of fright points that must be achieved to clear the floor. As you play, you’ll be pulling from a queue that contains both hotel guests and various fiends. Each scarer has a grid around them that shows how many fright points they contribute and where. For instance, a phantasmal chef may contribute one fright point to the room directly above and below him and two fright points to the rooms on either side of him. When guests are then placed in those rooms, they’re affected by the fright points. When you get enough required for the bottom floor, all of those guests will be scared away, the bottom floor will drop off the screen, and the next floor will come into view.
There is a deeper level of strategy involved in the game on top of simply setting and clearing the hotels. Nothing moves until the bottom visible floor is cleared. If you work at it, though, you can go ahead and scare the crap out of the other 4 floors. Then, when you complete the bottom floor, it will generate a combo, granting you bonus points as well as rapidly filling a “talisman bar” that can be redeemed for special ghouls that help out in tight situations.
There is a lot of gameplay available here. With 50 levels, you’ll be busy for a while if you get hooked on the game. On top of that, each level abides by the 3-star system, so perfectionists can go back for better scores if they want.
While the game is solid overall, there are one or two things about it that can really get under your skin. First, the talismans, while helpful in tight situations, can quickly run out. To replace them, you have to spend “Boo-Bucks.” It’s not overtly egregious, but a single talisman use will cost you 50,000 boo-bucks, which can take you 10+ levels to earn. Apart from the standard freemium complaints, though, is the Facebook integration. If you aren’t interested in giving your Facebook permission for this game, it will beat you to death with it. When you fire the game up and after every level they will remind you to plug up with Facebook. They even tell you it’s easy to turn off later. It’s impossible to turn off the notifications if they’re not tied together, though. It’s infuriating and completely unnecessary for the game.
Visuals & Audio
The visual style for Fright Heights is cute and cartoony. Even with what could be considered more macabre source material, REDspace have done a great job keeping the game kid friendly and inviting. It feels like it would be right at home alongside gradeschool Halloween coloring books.
The music in the game feels reminiscent of something out of Disney’s Hocus Pocus or Honey I Shrunk the Kids. The orchestral track is upbeat but maintains that air of the otherworldly. It’s fun and thematic. The sound effects do a fair job as well – screams and other such effects help keep the Halloween feel alive without being too shrill or offputting.
Overall
Overall, Fright Heights is a solid puzzle game with plenty to keep you busy. The cute visual style and solid audio do a good job of drawing you into the lighthearted horror world. An egregious, annoying press for social media will continually keep you frustrated if you don’t want to submit to their whims. With a free price tag, though, you could keep your kids entertained without worry. Just make sure they don’t want to buy any Boo-Bucks.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
