While we are waiting for the last of the E3 conferences and probably Nintendo's mindrape with it's Wii U and a butt-ton of interesting games (fanboy spotted), let's make a short Musical Break about a soundtrack that I listen to most of my time that nearly nobody knows about.

Those effects *_*

I'm talking about Trine, a game that came out a few years ago on PC and PS3, where you play as three different, yet complementary heroes : a wizard, a thief, and a knight whose souls are linked to the mysterious artefact known as the Trine. The story is pretty straightforward : evil necromancer wants to conquer the world, go find him, smash his head with a mace, the end. No plot twists, that's basically it. You go through a few levels, smashing squelettons in the face. But it's charm lies within it's storybook-like narration and the dialogue between the characters, which can sometimes say some funny lines (though Trine 2 expands on that and makes it much better).

There are a few physics besed puzzles here and there, and we've got to switch between characters to advance in the game. It is also playable in co-op, which is much more fun.

To be honnest, Trine 1 isn't really that spectacular. Despite a few glitches here and there, it does it's job well. But the thing that really stood out for me was it's soundtrack, composed by Ari Pulkinnen, a composer whom very few know his name, but most of you might recognize his work (a few millions in fact) :

Indeed, Ari Pulkkinen is the composer of the Angry Birds soundtracks ! I've got to admit that I too was pretty surprised when I knew that ^^' He also composed music for games like Outland (which was pretty cool) and Super Stardust Delta (amazing soundtrack).

Time to talk about Trine's soundtrack : it is one of my favorite soundtracks of all time ! Something special surrounds it, a "je-ne-sais-quoi" that takes me everytime I listen to it. It is also a great soudtrack to listen to when you read books such as A Song of Ice and Fire or the Discworld series.

Nearly all of the tracks are calm and soothing, which is quite a break from what I might listen to. And if I have to choose between the soundtrack of Trine 1 or 2, I'd have to go with Trine 1's. It has a simplicity to it that the second one lost (which doesn't mean it's bad, on the contrary).

But there is a track on the first's soundtrack that breaks with the calm tones of the rest that is on my spotlight today : Tower of Sarek, the last level's track !

CRedit is a series of articles which I've found the title 3 weeks a go, but was never used for the simple yet truthful reason that I didn't have a single clue about what I was going to write in.And now I know : I'll write about games I liked (or not), simple, like a quarter you'd put in a souvenir making machine !

And today I'll write about Smurf's Nightmare, a Game Boy/ Game Boy Color game that came out in 1999. I've talked about it last Wednesday in "la Case du Geek" on Fréquence Geek, a French webradio, where I talk to people about videogames.

Two weeks ago, I've talked about dreams with Klonoa Door to Phantomile and last week I've talked about the possible feeling of taking drugs with Rhythm Tengoku (I'll probably rewrite them in the near future if I'm not too lazy). This week, I'll take you to the land of Nightmares with Smurf's Nightmare *insert diabolical laughter*

The Infogrames logo ! THE INFOGRAMES LOGO !! AAAHHHH !!!*

*This state of mind refers to the Joueur du Grenier, a quite famous French internet reviewer (and French Angry Video Game Nerd to make a quick comparison), who got traumatised by the Infogrames games, which are considered to be horrible games based off of famous french and belgian comic books.

Before we begin, just forget about the movie that came last year, just forget about it ! It was a horrible piece of work that totally raped the spirit of the comic book ! The original Smurfs is a classic, that provides fun stories for youngsters and it was pretty good. FORGET THE MOVIE ! Now that it's done, let's begin shall we ?

The evil wizard Gargamel has cast an evil spell on the whole Smurf village that makes the Smurfs prisonners of their own nightmares. We play with the Hefty Smurf, who hasn't been cursed for mysterious reasons, that we'll learn about during a really complex story, full of surprising twists…

Ok, I'm just kidding : he  just went out for a stroll and came back not knowing what happened. And he now has to deliver the whole village ! Yes, all 6 of them !

Oh yeah, doin' nothing is what made me win…the right to save everyone ! D'oh !

Something gets me though : haw could Gargamel curse the village if he doesn't have the slightest clue where it is ? And how can the Hefty Smurf invade the other Smurf's nightmares without any spell, nor Inception machine ? Is he a Psychonaut ? And why am I questionning the logic of an old Game Boy game that really hasn't got any story to speak of ?

Here is one of the 6 lines explaining the story of the game. Litterally 6 lines throughout the WHOLE game !

We need to go through 6 worlds (hell's kitchen, the haunted library, the mysterious planet, the hauted mansion, the malevolent workbench and the classic evil scientists lab) in order to break the spell. Each world is divided in 2 levels and potentially 2 bonus levels where you have to hit boxes to win more lives and avoid bombs laid everywhere by the Jokey Smurf. As a matter of fact, nearly half of the entierety of the boxes are trapped thanks to that douche ! In the end, you'll hate his stupid little grin !

The 2 main levels follow the same plan : the first one introduces us to the theme of the world and is relatively simple in the obstacles (walking sausages for example… no I'm not inventing this, it's real ! THE SAUSAGES ARE REAL !!), and the second one goes further in the trappings related to the theme (killer forks, killer bottles of ink, screwing screws, etc). It also progressively introduces us to cheap traps, such as leaps of faith, ennemies spawning on your face and moving platforms.

One of the most interesting gameplay mecanics of the game comes with the sarsaparilla leaves : in every level, there are tons of leaves scattered kinda everywhere. Each time you grab one, a meter fills up and each time the meter gets filled to a third, the Hefty Smurf will be able to perform a double jump (and then a triple jump once it's two thirds full). Being able to jump higher nets you the right to advance in some of the levels and complete them. This also means you've got to grab every single leaf you find to avoid some backtracking (personally, I didn't need to do some since it's quite easy to find enough of them).

It sounds like the beggining of a joke…

Once you complete a world, you'll have to complete a special level (mostly time-restraint levels) to grab the key to the next world. They can be pretty stressful and you'll need good reflexes to get past them, more than in the normal levels. There's a race on the back of a hare and a mole where you need to avoid spikes and holes (insert sex joke here) and jump with precision. There is a water level (start to cringe right now), where you'll need to grab bubbles for air and avoid some (too) well placed ennemies. And in the barrage level, you'll need to avoid being hit by a huge wave that can sometimes take more than half of the screen, so you'll see nearly nothing (that, is a cheap shot !).

Overall the difficulty is quite strange : the first 3 worlds are easy as pie, and the 3 last are irritatingly cheap, with a lot of cheap traps. Oh and there is no checkpoint, so you die, you restart the level from the beggining ! So the game's length artificially increases, but if you manage quite well, it takes more or less 2 hours to finish the game. It is a pretty decent length for a Game Boy Game without save points (but when you consider the price back then, you'd need to be quite the bad player to not feel cheated).

As far as the graphics goes, it is pretty and respects the style of the comic book. But the point that really surprised me is the music : composed by Alberto Jose González, they deserve that you listen to at least one of them. And since I'm quite the generous guy, here is the best track of the game :

Never have I had to write a news that quickly. I had more or less 7 minutes to write it, so the text was quite the challenge to write !

Little King's Story was a game I really enjoyed on the Wii when it came out, and when I learned there was to be a sequel on the PS Vita, I was sold on the console… And then I saw the new design. And cried.

Oh God my eyes ! Howzer, what did they DO to you !? *sobs*

The dictatorship simulation went from a cutesy and colorful design to something a bit darker and "more adult" with a quite average manga style that conflicts with the previous one.

I can at least force myself to like it, because the gameplay on the Vita looks fantastic, with the touch based control scheme, which is much more precise than the Wii's.

I can like it… if it does come out in Europe, since it releases only digitally in the US by the year's end. There is hope still, since all you need is transfer the data from the american servers to the european one, rate it, put a pric tag on it and Bam ! I can spill my subjects guts and mix it to the Oni's for my grand pleasure ! No real risk for Konami !

Here's a video for your viewing pleasure :

I really hope it comes out in Europe ! Written in 9 minutes, I'm that good !

If there's something cool about the Internet, it's that the information goes reaaally fast. It is kinda like the series Early Edition, since we've got the magazine shown days before it's supposed to come out !

It's like… We can see the futur on the Internet…Trippy !

So yeah, we already have some scans of the new Nintendo Power from Neogaf, which should come out a few days after Nintendo's E3 conference (or something like that I guess). It already shows the new Castlevania game called Mirror of Fate, which takes place during the same period as Lords of Shadow.

It's pretty !

We play as Trevor Belmont, another member of the Brotherhood (and probably a son/cousin/brother of Gabriel's, take a pick). The game looks pretty similar to LoS, since the battle system is similar, with dark and light magic, tons of combos and beating monsters with a Combat cross. However, the thing we don't know is if the gameplay is mostly 2D (with 3D shots, as seen on the screens below) or movement in a 3D space.

All we have is 2 crappy screenshots taken from the magazine (but seen from a distance, it looks pretty badass) :

Looks nice for a handheld such as the 3DS, with killer lighting effects. But I guess we'll have to wait Nintendo's E3 conference in less than a week to see it in movement and where we'll have to fake our enthusiasm for a game we now know of !

I tried to play Lords of Shadow on the PS3, but I got quite bored with it pretty quick (I felt more like a tourist than a hero). Maybe this one will fare better with my slightly short span of attention ^^