Game Review #1 Bastion (2011)

- Play-by-play video game playing.

I wanted to start the video game reviews on my blog with a game that was on the three big consoles, but the only worthy ones were MegaMan 9 and 10 and honestly nobody needs to hear me talk about those anymore. So I picked a game that isn't on all consoles but I have played most recently. I've known about Bastion since its release July 20^th, 2011 on the Xbox 360 by SuperGiant Games but I only got around to playing through the game in its entirety last month. Bastion is an isometric action-rpg with lush beautiful colours, decent controls and a good mood-setting soundtrack. It takes between 7 to 15 hours of game play, depending on the difficulty chosen and if you want to see both endings.

If your interest has been piqued then hopefully you have a Windows PC, Xbox 360 with online capabilities or you use Google Chrome. I've only played the MS 360 version so problems, glitches and other assorted things can only be connected to that version within this review.

When you first start playing Bastion you will notice something right away and that is that the game is narrated, the entire game, through combat, those slow parts when you are just looking for your next item upgrade and all the parts in between. While I played the entire game, I thought more of the game as a story being told by a friend especially during the heavier story elements. This was simply a great way to avoid long spells of text and taking the player out of the action. Kill a group of slimes and find out your entire village is annihilated all in one, why that is gaming done right. A great thing about the narration is that the narrator doesn't blather on spouting the same audio clips over and over like a broken record player. Though if you replay the three bonus areas the narrator will tell the same story as you progress.

With all action-rpg genre games fans are probably looking forward to having two things: fluid combat and neat weapons to slay with. To have these you first have to have a decent if not tight control scheme and Bastion's default layout (only semi-configurable) is acceptable, there isn't any glaring problems, but I think most games really should have fully configurable control setups. I often play action games with the claw grip so being forced out of something natural takes a bit of extra time when the game requires a lot of buttons pressed, though for me Bastion didn't require this, so it may be a moot point.

Yeah, it is a real thing.

Combat flows well enough with all the different weapons, though all are not built equally, and you'll find some are game-breaking compared to others, especially some long range weapons with a few upgrades and things just aren't fair for the enemies. This brings me into difficulty. Starting a new game you'll only really get normal mode and easy mode. In the normal mode you have a few chances to finish an area and in easy mode, death means absolutely nothing. You just stand back up and keep fighting. If you just want to feel the game and read the story but have nothing in your way like strategy or skill, easy mode is the way to go. However both modes you can get items to increase the difficulty and boost your experience. You can easily make the game near impossible on normal mode, so there is a difficulty for everyone.

I was going to discuss the many different weapons you can get but I think that might be giving away some of the enjoyment of the game. Just trust me that when the game gives you a weapon, at least use that weapon for that particular area, it was made for it! Though I will say that the starting hammer was an enjoyable weapon to kill with but I never stayed with it as enemies seemed better killed by quicker attacking short range weapons.

COLOURS!

I think Bastion might be one of the better small company games I've played in quite a while; I'm pleased I own a 360 and Bastion comes off as being a reason to own the system rather than just a game to play because you have a 360.

8/10

PS: The narrator sounds exactly like Ron Perlman.