This week’s SmashPad Streamkend will be featuring Guacamelee!, which is the latest game from Drinkbox Studios released on PSN this week for the PS3 and Vita. You may know Drinkbox as the developer behind the two Tales From Space games on PSN, which were platformers starring blobs that gained a lot of praise from fans and critics alike. Their latest game is quite a bit different in that it’s more of a Metroidvania-style game featuring a Mexican luchador that sets out to save El Presidente’s daughter after she’s been kidnapped during a disastrous Day of the Dead celebration. Along the way, he earns plenty of new moves and powers to help him explore the environment and defeat plenty of baddies, as you’d expect from this style of game.

Looking at the upcoming schedule, it looks like indie developers will save the rest of the month since there isn’t much of anything coming out at retail in April. I’m thinking that we’ll feature Dragon Fantasy Book I and/or Sacred Citadel next weekend to fill out that show. The final weekend of the month will likely feature either Monaco on XBLA or Thomas Was Alone on PSN or maybe it’ll be both to make it our first multiplatform stream. May will at least start off strong with Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon and Zombie Tycoon II: Brainhov’s Revenge hitting digital services that first week of the month.

As always, you can tune into the stream directly from this article or better yet, you can subscribe to our Twitch.tv channel to get an email reminder when the stream goes live along with the ability to directly chat with me to ask questions or whatever. If you miss the stream, it’ll be archived on our Youtube channel, so you can subscribe there to catch up. For instant notification of the latest articles from the site itself, you can follow us on Twitter to see what’s new from SmashPad.

This week’s SmashPad Streamkend will feature the Wii U puzzle platformer Toki Tori 2. We will be taking a look at the latest notable release on the Wii U’s eShop, which is a sequel to a classic puzzle game for the Game Boy Color by Two Tribes. The studio has been fairly quiet in regards to this series with just a high-res remake that made the rounds on a number of platforms from 2008 to 2011 before they confirmed that a sequel was in the works. The big change for the sequel is that the small levels of the original are gone in favor of much bigger levels that sort of draw some inspiration from Metroid-style games in their design, though the controls are much simpler with just two moves in your arsenal to work with. Toki Tori 2 is currently available exclusively on the Wii U for the time being for $13.49 with a launch discount until April 19.

It looks like the release situation for the rest of April is getting a bit better. Guacamelee will definitely be next week’s game as the big release on April 9 for just the PS3 and Vita. The week following that could be Sacred Citadel for PSN, which is a beat-’em-up RPG based on the Sacred RPG universe. The week of April 23 looks to be a dud at the moment while the week after that is likely to be Zombie Tycoon 2 for PS3 and Vita. There really isn’t a lot to choose from in April, which isn’t a huge surprise since this is usually a barren month every year.

As always, this post will be updated with a video player at 2 PM EST on Saturday so you can tune in directly from here, though you can subscribe to our Twitch.tv channel to get an email when the stream starts and the ability to chat with me as I play. If you miss the show, the archive will be up on our Youtube channel later that day. If you’re looking for a way to keep up with all of our activity, feel free to follow us on Twitter to get up-to-the-minute updates on new articles, live streams, and all of the other content we’re working on.

What Is It About?

BioShock Infinite takes place in the floating city of Columbia. It’s a city meant to represent American exceptionalism; a city where George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin stop just short of being gods. It’s an American utopia, meant for those that are (literally) above everybody else. But that’s not quite what you find upon arrival.

You are Booker DeWitt, a disgraced former Pinkerton detective who has drank and gambled his way into a massive debt. To settle his debt, he must find and return Elizabeth, a young woman held captive in Columbia for most of her life. But to do so, you’ll have to enter a Columbia that is slowly becoming ravaged by civil war between the Founders and the Vox Populi. The Founders are upper class and pure Americans; the Vox Populi are the working class folk and minorities, led by Daisy Fitzroy.

Your main concern, though, will be Zachary Hale Comstock, leader of Columbia and seemingly self-proclaimed prophet, who is fanatically idolized by citizens, primarily through scare tactics. Comstock keeps Elizabeth locked up tight and under the watch of the Songbird, a gigantic winged, mechanical creature. Comstock considers Elizabeth the city’s lamb; the future of his will. Unfortunately for you, Booker, you are the False Shepherd who will lead her astray. And you must be dealt with.

Why Should I Care?

Much like the original BioShock, BioShock Infinite is driven by an incredibly strong story. But what I felt helps Infinite’s cause is that your tasks are driving the story more than before.

The story feels enjoyably complicated. It’s lengthy, consistently engaging and well paced. In BioShock, the story would temporarily slow down to find Little Sisters and take down their associated Big Daddies; it occasionally felt like just enough of a chore. I never felt that way with Infinite. The plot progressed smoothly and bounced around at just the right times. Every voxophone, kinectoscope and code book you find furthers what you’ll learn about Columbia. Each thing you learn and explore tends to have an immediate effect; you don’t need to necessarily wait until the end of the game for things to make sense. The primary story itself kept me engaged and guessing until the end. The payoff was far more than worth it.

Playing as Booker is a completely different type of experience. He’s not a faceless, mute character that you considering to be yourself. Having his own personality, it makes it harder to make a connection to him. However, the more you progress, the more obvious it is that it doesn’t matter. He matters for the story, but your connection should be to Elizabeth. She’s a well-written character and not your typical damsel in distress. Rather than being along for the ride, she’s the reason for the ride and is more than willing to move on without you, if need be. She’ll make you care more about her than you will about yourself and it’s something you’ll want to buy into. Her strongest and most interesting element is her ability to control dimensional tears. Tears offer glimpses into alternate times and situations, which is about all I can mention without spoiling anything.

Infinite is successfully able to pull off the “product of its time” aspect. Set in 1912, you are exposed to the various types of tensions, most of which are racial and based on previous wars and conflicts. You’ll come across a more sinister type of propaganda than what we’ve seen in Rapture and encounter the plights of the Founders and the Vox Populi. Themes of purification, religious radicalism, xenophobia and a type of “Red Scare.” It’s a believable alternative historic setting, considering this probably could have existed at the time if somebody was more or less handed a city (well, not necessarily a floating one).

For as immersive as the story and setting might be, Infinite still feels awfully free. Exploration was easier to complete, though backtracking was at times necessary for optional objectives. The combat was a good fit for this new setting.

Guns play a much larger part with Infinite, both with yourself and your enemies. Nearly every enemy has a gun, which at times can feel a bit overwhelming. Even on a normal difficulty, there was a persistent challenge from all angles. But you’ll be able to strategically use Sky Rails, freight hooks and Elizabeth’s tear assistance (typically in the form of sentry weapons, cover and medical kits) to even the playing field. And Infinite’s version of plasmids, called vigors and gears, help create a different type of dynamic.

 Vigors give you the ability to shock people (Shock Jockey), set them on fire/blow them up (Devil’s Kiss) or sic murderous crows (Murder of Crows) upon demand, but you can also use them as traps. For example, Return to Sender, which reflects projectiles, can be charged and thrown into an upcoming battlefield, allowing the vigor to capture bullets and project them back at the firee. At times, the vigors seem overly powerful. There were some moments where charging Devil’s Kiss immediately incinerated several enemies. However, because of the challenge you’re typically facing, it never cheapen the experience. Neither will Gear, which are wearable items can give you a boost in terms of damage or ammunition clip size.

The only aspect I can consider a drawback are the attitudes of Columbia’s citizens. For the most part, they add some good color to the city. You’ll hear some interesting stories if you decide to eavesdrop. However, they don’t need to necessarily reflect your current standing. Even though you get tagged as the False Shepherd, you only receive so much reaction. Occasionally, you’ll have somebody tip off a guard about you. It would have been a much more interesting dynamic if you drew more of a reaction, testing to see how long you could stay in an area and what you could get away with. But, much of the responsibility relies on what you do. The NPCs seem a bit too disassociated at times. A perfect example was a woman in a shop I entered when avoiding gunfire. The woman continued to sweep her shop while I shot out of her doorway. It was funny, yet odd. This type of situation won’t necessarily take you out of the mood, but it is noticeable.

What Makes It Worth My Time And Money?

It’s hard not to compare BioShock Infinite to the original BioShock, but rightfully so. The original was such a great experience, it has its sticking power. It was memorable. Infinite is just as memorable and is easily on the level of quality. In some ways, it surpasses the original. There’s a certain flow it brings to the table that’s hard to beat. The more I played, the more I felt the need to keep going. What was the next checkpoint going to bring? What else was I going to have thrown my way? Infinite’s quality story is to thank for that. It has that wow factor; it had me constantly thinking about it after all was said and done. In all, it’s a complete package.

Score: 9.5 | Recommendation: Buy It

Editor’s Note: BioShock Infinite was purchased by the reviewer who completed the main story in roughly 10-12 hours.

This week’s featured game on SmashPad Streamkend is the console version of Terraria, which has come to Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network this week for $14.99 on each service. The console version of Terraria features the requisite controller support, improved crafting and inventory menus, a new boss and enemies, new items and other stuff to find or craft, and four-player splitscreen support with up to eight-player online multiplayer for hectic combat fun. While it’s often compared to Minecraft, Terraria is much more focused on combat as there is a hierarchy of enemies, loot, and bosses to take on as you work towards defeating the final boss before the game enters hard mode and gives you even more to do beyond that. I’ll be playing the PSN version of the game specifically for tomorrow’s show.

Looking at a preliminary list of releases for April, it looks grim for what I’m interested in playing for the show. Toki Tori 2 looks to be the game for next weekend with Guacamelee being the big game for the weekend after that. The last three weeks are pretty barren at the moment, so we may have to check out some current-gen classics for those few weeks if nothing of interest is announced for the last half of April.

As always, you can tune into the stream directly from this page when it starts or you can subscribe to our Twitch.tv page to chat with me directly and get email when we do live streams. If you miss out on the show, we archive each show on our Youtube channel so you’ll never miss out completely. You can also follow our Twitter account for more news on when new content goes up on the site and notices when live streams begin.

If you had to name an immensely popular entertainment property off the top of your head, The Walking Dead could easily come to mind. The comic series began steamrolling its way into mainstream media when the now-critically acclaimed television series debuted in 2010. Gamers were treated to a fantastic gaming experience last year, when Telltale Games released their episodic effort. But that wasn’t a direct tie to the television series. Activision and Terminal Reality give us just that with The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct. How does the the game stack up? About as wonderfully as a sole survivor facing 50 zombies without a weapon.

What Is It About?

The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct’s intent is to provide backstory for Daryl Dixon, arguably the television series’ most popular character. On the show, Daryl is fairly mysterious, having been thrown into the group’s situation but gradually becoming more and more important. So there’s a fair case for a game to capture what made Daryl who he is and explore the relationship with his brother Merle. Unfortunately, you still have a minuscule sense of what Daryl is about.

The game begins with Daryl returning from a hunting trip to a world overrun by zombies. He moves to find Merle, with whom the game touts you’ll be fighting alongside. I don’t need to approximate how much time you actually spend doing that, because you don’t. Instead, you’ll occasionally have Merle on a radio and rarely have him in the same room. So beyond some brief father-based dialogue and an “I saved your crossbow” moment, you won’t end up anymore knowledgeable about the Dixon boys’ relationship. The game’s story is merely a series of mundane and, at best, frustrating tasks that end on an anticlimactic note.

Why Should I Care?

You shouldn’t care as much about playing the game as you should avoiding it. Now, we all know the dangers of a licensed game. We’re so numb to the genre that it’s hard to expect good things out of most of them. The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct is a shining example of why pessimism should be the immediate attitude towards licensed games.

For starters, the game looks no better than a game straight out of 2005. The immediate comparison I was able to make was to Call of Duty 2, but I feel that was more impressive. There may be more shine on TWD: SI, but jit doesn’t provide any graphical quality. I couldn’t decide what the worst graphical element of the game was, so I’ll call it a tie. The first time you see Merle, his face is decently captured, but the rest of the character is a very basic, horribly simplistic design. Countering Merle’s first impressions are the zombies (walkers, rather), all 5-6 of their designs. Too many end up directly in your face, where you’ll see an overly static face moving back and forth.

Struggle is a main theme to the gameplay. On TV, Daryl is quiet and swift. You play a slow, robotic Daryl whose gestures are too grandiose. It’s understandable that swinging a sledgehammer will be more cumbersome than a knife. I would expect mechanical differences there. But when switching weapons or items turns into a slow-motion affair, it really puts you in a bad spot during walker attacks. Most of the gameplay fails to make sense, though. If The Walking Dead has shown so many times that one good stabbing to the head takes down a walker. Why does the game force you to take anywhere from three to five swings to accomplish that? The combat feels like turn-based fighting in too many situations and your best option will be to execute a walker from behind. That will be incredibly hard to perform, though, when the game throws out dozens of them at you at any given time. The slightest nudge from a walker will come close to stopping you in your tracks, making movement difficult.

Your supporting cast of characters is worth a brief mention, if only to illustrate how worthless and unmemorable they are. You’ll have some forced upon you and some you can opt to bring along. They are meant to make you feel like you’re making tough choices. In reality, they serve no purpose beyond taking up a spot in your car. You have the ability to send survivors out to gather food, ammo or fuel, but they’l mostly become injured. I was lucky to get a couple bits of food, as I was told more frequently that they died and I lost the weapon I provided them. I can’t imagine how easily they could have been killed if they were fighting alongside me. At no point did I feel any tough choices were made.

Much of the game simply doesn’t make sense. You’re playing in a zombie apocalypse setting, so the idea is to scavenge as much as possible, right? But you aren’t allowed to rummage through cars; to pick up cans; to ransack houses. My favorite “really?” moment came when Daryl gets his crossbow (which you use for maybe half the game). It’s stuck underneath dead body, but you can’t grab it. After fighting a couple walkers, suddenly the one with your crossbow attacks you. Upon killing it, the crossbow is again stuck under the body, but you can grab it this time. Because that makes sense.

What Makes It Worth My Time And Money?

I’m hard pressed to find many positives about The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct. The story is forgettable and abruptly ends. You won’t feel like anything was resolved or there was any benefit to having experienced this. There are some decent times to be had in Herd Mode, where you’re pitted against waves of walkers and stealth isn’t as important. But the gameplay is just as bland and the mode feels tacked on.

I suppose The Walking Dead was due for something like this. The brand is only increasing in popularity and thus far, most everything it’s been associated with has been executed so well. The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct rides the brand too much; take the brand away and you have a game nobody would line up for. This is a bland, forced effort that dilutes The Walking Dead. If you want a fantastic Walking Dead gaming experience, look Telltale’s way instead.

Score: 1.5 | Recommendation: Avoid It

Editor’s Note: The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct was purchased by the reviewer who completed the main story in roughly 6 hours. Several rounds of Herd Mode were also completed.

This week’s SmashPad Streamkend will be featuring Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate for the Wii U as I continue playing the latest game in the series that continues to search for its breakout installment in the West. I’m also expecting to get LEGO City Undercover from Gamefly tomorrow, so that may be coming in hot to make an appearance in the second hour of the show. If that doesn’t arrive in time, then I’ll stick with Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate for the entire show.

Looking at upcoming releases, next weekend’s show will likely be all about Terraria since that will finally be out on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade. The week after that may return to the Wii U with the release of Toki Tori 2 on the eShop.

As always, you can tune into the stream directly from this page when the stream begins at 2 PM EST tomorrow or you can subscribe to our Twitch.tv channel to get an email when the stream is live and get the chance to ask questions and chat while I play. There will be an archive of the show on our Youtube Channel afterwards for those that miss it.

Parting is such sweet sorrow, and after getting to know Commander Shepard and company for more than five years now it will be hard to say goodbye. Citadel, BioWare’s last confirmed DLC for Mass Effect 3, is a really nice parting gift for all avid Mass Effect fans. With tons of goodies to obtain, a unique story arc and some of the best dialogue in the entire series, fans looking for one last perfect adventure are hard-pressed to not give this DLC a try.

What Is It About?

The DLC begins with Shepard and his crew on shore leave at the Citadel when mysterious mercenaries start shooting up the place. After the dust has settled, Shepard returns to his newly acquired posh apartment to search for clues as to who wants him dead. The search for answers leads to some neat sidequests, including infiltrating a casino on the Citadel’s Silversun Strip to find the arms dealer who gave the mercs weapons. Once inside the casino, Shepard must use biometric scanners to disable cameras and distract guards while other party members enter the vault and ultimately to your target. Like a new band of space thieves, this particular mission felt very “Ocean’s 11,” which is a nice little diversion from constantly killing enemies.

Why Should I Care?

But the true highlight of Citadel comes from the dialogue, which was surprisingly upbeat and hilarious throughout the entire adventure. From meeting new (annoying) characters such as Brooks who bumbles around everywhere to being jokingly off-put in the middle of firefights, you will always find yourself enjoying anything that is being said. One of the best lines in the DLC comes after a member on your team questions why Shepard was being shot at:

Liara: “Why do the mercenaries want to kill you?”

Shepard: “They have guns and they don’t like me.”

It’s moments like this that just make Citadel so fun to play as you never know what could be said next at any given moment. Even the segment in Shepard’s apartment when tensions are running high after finding out the location of a high value target are soon cooled down when a wary Volus enters to deliver a pizza because someone on your squad had the munchies. It’s these random and downright goofy moments that BioWare knows are just put there to entertain the fans.

While the main mission itself is relatively short (you can complete it in 3-5 hours), the final mission that has you fighting inside the archives of the Citadel rivals some of the best firefights in the entire series. Not only do you get to treat yourself to some cool Mass Effect lore with audio files and holograms reenacting scenes from history, but you get to fight alongside every person in your squad at once. The sheer depth and volume of this mission is only on par with the suicide mission at the end of Mass Effect 2. Getting cornered during one point of this mission, my three-man team was soon saved by an entire battalion of my remaining squad shooting waves of bullets from above. A treat that sadly was rarely seen in the rest of the Mass Effect games.

What Makes It Worth My Time And Money?

After the main mission is complete you can still spend plenty of time wandering around the Silversun Strip, a ritzy neon avenue that is home to an arcade, battle arena and even a casino. All of these new places really only serve to give fans a place to waste time since you can only win credits or furnishings for your new home, but they are fun to check out every once in a while to see how some of the new games work. For kicks, check out the holographic racing game with a contestant called C-SEC Biscuit. Hanging around the Silversun Strip also lets you check in on your squad, which lends to some hilarious moments, from Javik shooting a low-budget movie to helping Garrus pick up a date. Everything is wrapped up nicely with a huge party at Shepard’s new digs, where you can interact with everyone who got invited and even engage in more sexual encounters if you so choose as well, all of which is topped off with a picture of everyone there. It’s a fitting end to the adventure and a way for BioWare to say thanks for taking part in the series for so many years.

Citadel is merely fan service by BioWare to end things on a good note. While the main story itself is really short, the hilarious dialog and countless extra activities you can engage in are well worth the price of admission. Six years, hundreds of hours and countless stories told, Mass Effect has come to an end and fans that are still looking for one last swan song will be pleased with what Citadel has to offer.

Score: 8.5 | Recommendation: Must-Have

Editor’s Note: The DLC was purchased by the reviewer who completed the main story in four hours. Seven complete hours were played, including all side activities.

As March continues, the big hitters take their shots and Kratos’ latest adventure is this weekend’s featured game on SmashPad Streamkend.

God of War: Ascension shows off the angry man’s adventures six months after he killed his family as he’s been taken captive by the Furies, who are the arbiters of blood oaths and those that attempt to break them. As you may be aware of from the other God of War games, Kratos doesn’t take kindly to being imprisoned and tortured, so he breaks free and attempts to  take them down. The most interesting aspect of the game is the online multiplayer, which is a first for the series and the developers have done a good job of figuring out how to make it work for God of War. Due to bandwidth issues on my end, we won’t be able to play any multiplayer and will instead focus on single-player. I don’t know that I’ll stick to the game for a full two hours, so there will probably be an hour of Ascension and the rest will be filled with something like Bit.Trip Presents… Runner 2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien to change things up with something more silly and light-hearted than God of War.

Next week is looking like a good week to hop back on the Wii U wagon as two big games are out next week with Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate and Lego City Undercover providing a nice one-two punch for Nintendo’s ailing system. I don’t know why both of those games had to come out the same week, but we will be taking a look at both for next weekend’s show to see how they turned out.

As always, you can tune into the stream directly from this page when the stream goes live tomorrow at 2 PM EST or you can tune in on our Twitch.tv channel to chat directly, which you can subscribe to our channel to get an email reminder when the stream goes live. If you miss the stream, we will be archiving the show on our Youtube channel so that you can catch up with what you’ve missed.

Sony’s MLB 13: The Show is out this week and it’s also our featured game on this weekend’s SmashPad Streamkend as we take a look at this year’s installment of the best-selling baseball series. This year’s game features some big additions like a new mode that lets you jump right into The Postseason without the pretense of a 162 game season, another new mode that lets you play just real match-ups with accurate rosters for that day’s game called The Show Live, and an overhauled beginner’s mode that attempts to make it easier for newcomers to get into the game. As a veteran of the series, I’m particularly excited by some of the enhancements to Road to the Show that gives the mode’s presentation more of a personal touch this year. Tomorrow’s stream will mostly focus on Road to the Show since I can fit in more games than I could playing a full nine-inning game.

Next weekend will feature another Sony game, as God of War: Ascension will finally be out to give us a look at some of Kratos’ earliest adventures set before the first game in the series. The week after that will likely feature LEGO City Undercover, which is the first big Wii U game of 2013 and an original LEGO game that looks to be the culmination of everything Traveler’s Tales has learned making licensed LEGO games set in an original world and story. After that, we’ll have to see how the release calendar shakes out at the end of March as the fiscal quarter ends for many companies, which means that there will be quite a few games dumped out then to make the deadline for their financial numbers.

As always, check out this article for the video player when the stream goes live, though you can also subscribe to our Twitch.tv channel to get email notifications when our streams go live. I’ll also be archiving the stream once again, so you can check it out on our Youtube channel a few hours later to catch up. I’m hoping to start doing some more livestreams over the next few months as we can let you guys in on our reviews process of playing some of these games while also doing occasional streams of games just for the hell of it when I something I want to play live.

This week presented an interesting challenge as I wanted to shake things up a bit and try out a new platform, which has resulted in me getting my PC ready to stream this week. We will be checking out some Steam games that I’ll be playing in Big Picture Mode so that there’s as little of my desktop in the stream as possible. As for specific games, I had some games like Serious Sam Double D and The Random Encounter in mind along with some of the other weird indie games that I have in my library, so there shouldn’t be a shortage of things to play.

I initially had a Super Nintendo stream in mind for this week, but extensive testing has showed me that my video cable seems to be dead. I’ll have to order a new cable for the next time there’s a lull in the schedule. This month looks to be a busy one for new releases with MLB 13: The Show, God of War: Ascension, and Lego City Undercover being the big games that I’ll be streaming the Saturday after their launches.

As always, you can tune into the stream directly from this page when it begins at 2 PM EST on March 2 or you can subscribe to our Twitch.tv channel directly to get an email when the stream is live along with the ability to chat with me during the stream.  I will also be recording the stream myself and uploading it onto Youtube so you can check out the archive in an easy to watch format.