We continue building seasonal momentum and fling ourselves over Valve territory, as the JRT Show puts Portal 2 and the masterful tricksters who made it to the test.

Featuring science, potatoes and backhanded compliments.

I don’t know why but, before Portal 2 came out, I foolishly thought the episode covering it would be a little over ten minutes long. In truth, we have almost 20 minutes of JRT and I’m still left with quite a few things left to say.

Most were cut in fear of spoilers, others due to lack of time, and the ones I’m actually going to write about now, both concern the multiplayer.

So, I really love how there is a central hub that connects the five different stages together. It’s like an extra level just for the sake of dressing up the, usually routine, task of level selection. It is also a relic from a bygone era, when titles like these weren’t released by super-efficient teams of faceless automatons, but by a couple of nerdy coders that were always looking for neat ways to present mundane things.

In the episode, I really wanted to work in a quip about how the hub reminds me of the different entrances in Quake, that represented the different difficulty levels. Ah, those were the days.

These were also the simple, care-free days when you did all your communicating through the business end of your shotgun. Now that co-op gameplay is all the rage, what’s the etiquette for when you’ve played the game before and know exactly what’s coming up, but your partner hasn’t? I suppose it’d be similar to standard “movie theater” etiquette for action games like Resident Evil 5, but it should be much more complicated for puzzle games like Portal.

You see, the first time through the multiplayer levels in Portal 2, I simply spouted my theories as soon as they were formed in my head and was enthusiastically springing to action all over the place. But, now that I’ve actually cleared them, I immediately know what to do, and just handing out the solution right away would only be depriving the other player of the experience.

So, do I let ‘em figure it out on their own for a while, then ask if they want me to explain how it really works? How condescending would that be? Just thinking about acting like that, makes me want to punch myself in the face for excess douchebaggery-ness, but what other options do I have?

Anyway, I hope the video is enjoyable, I know it’s been a while since the last “proper” JRT. I’ll try to have another one up by the end of the month and, in the meantime, we’ll definitely be experiencing some more temporal shenanigans!

Season 2 of the JRT Show builds up to full flux capacity, as we take a look at Back to the Future: The Game: Episodes 1 through 3 and Telltale Games in general.

A review featuring hoverboards, gigawatts and branching timelines.

This video comes as a surprise to me as well, as it seems to somehow include additional commentary on Episodes 2 & 3. I don’t know if I am sleepwalking/acting/editing, but I don’t remember shooting a lot of these scenes and I think there are a couple of edits I asked Adobe Premiere to do differently. I guess they magically came out better? Strange.

Anyway, the review has footage from Episode 2 and my thoughts on it, even though I don’t recall actually playing it, and even from Episode 3, which isn’t even out yet! This doesn’t seem physically possible, but I also have this gut feeling telling me that it is somehow legit.

Even with all that extra content, there is still one thing I manage not to mention: I’ve always dreamed of making a Back to the Future videogame.

I’ve thought long about the genre it would actually belong in, and I feel “Point & Click Adventure” is a pretty good call. It plays to most of the franchise’s and, in this case, Telltale’s, strengths, and the fact that it has to completely ignore a few of the films’ trademarks just means that I can still dream of someday making the definitive adaptation.

In other news, it appears that watching too much Sir Ron Lionheart has affected my “R”s; oh, wait, there is no such thing as too much Sir Ron Lionheart. In your faces everybody!

Update: 08/04/2011

So, I got a weird email today, apparently sent by myself, containing the version of the review that I actually remember asking Premiere to compile back in February. Congrats, Adobe, this has to be the strangest bug I’ve ever seen.

Anyway, this one is quite bit shorter as it doesn’t have the mysterious extra footage the version above has, which covered Episodes 2 & 3. There are also some other changes, feel free to compare and contrast:

By the way, I’ve been short on time lately, so I haven’t played “Citizen Brown” yet. I will do so as soon as possible though, as I am curious to find if my predictions were terribly wrong or beautifully right.

Update: 17/05/2011

Guess what gang: I got hit up with another weird version of the review! This one comes off as some sort of in-between version of the two found above, not mentioning any gameplay from Episode 3 but still containing more material than I actually remember capturing three months ago.

I guess it only covers Episodes 1 & 2? This is starting to look less like a glitch and more like an elaborate prank. Judge for yourselves:

Hm… There’s something odd about the gallery too:

Much like Mass Effect‘s Commander Shepard, we return to action completely rejuvenated and analyse BioWare‘s most ambitious release yet.

Making this review was ridiculously time-consuming not just on account of my shoulder injury, but also because Mass Effect 2 has so much notable content! Of course, it’s not always the good kind of notable, but even when it fails, it fails spectacularly. I’ve really surprised myself by keeping the video under twenty minutes, as I could have easily done a Let’s Play of the whole thing.

As such, a lot of scenes were canned but, hey, maybe they’ll find their way into Mass Effect 3…

Special thanks to DM of the Rings and Darths & Droids, two genius webcomics that helped me illustrate a point in the review!

Season One of JRT springs to life, as we revisit the timeless free-running lifestyle of vigilantes through a thorough review of Assassin’s Creed II. Featuring vengeance, flashbacks and atrocious accents.

Most of my reviews will probably be considerably shorter, but I like to be as informative as possible and keep even the casual gamer in the loop. For a high-profile sequel such as Assassin’s Creed II, that means quickly going over the original, the special editions and the downloadable content, so the run-time piles up.

Still, some bits are edited out, believe it or not. For example, I really wanted to debate whether “Assassins” is an accurate name for our hero’s group. They are vigilantes, sure, they take the law into their own hands, but assassins?

When I think of an assassin, pop culture makes me picture someone you’d hire to sneakily & efficiently terminate an enemy.

In Assassin’s Creed the self-proclaimed Assassins usually kill out of their own volition, to protect their beliefs, and they go about it using the most extravagant methods possible. There is no poisoned food or drinks, there are no “accidents” or staged suicides.

You might argue that you can play it very sneaky if you want, but the gameplay clearly regards complete stealth as a secondary matter. Besides, even in the short movie, Assassin’s Creed: Lineage, Giovanni reveals himself early in order to have time to make his little speech first. The bad guys of the AC universe actually prove much more assassin-like in their ways.

Now, I’m fine with fiction breaking stereotypes, but I’d like some acknowledgment that the writers do realize that if an average person met an assassin, they wouldn’t curiously look at their ring finger and assume they’re looking for Templars to kill.

That would be like having something as strikingly unconventional as vampires that sparkle in the sunlight or werewolves that are unaffected by the moon, yet every supposedly normal person in your universe acts all nonchalant about it. That would drive me crazy.

Break-time is over and we return to reviews of considerable proportions, only fit for Ciao!, with my take on Assassin’s Creed II. If three thousand words feel a bit too much for you, and I can’t possibly blame you, show a little more patience and wait for the video version, already in the editing room!

Even though I did like the original and had high hopes for this one, Ubisoft still managed to surprise me positively with Assassin’s Creed II. More insight when the video review goes live, hopefully by the end of the week!

A remake to a game as universally beloved as this SCUMM™ classic can’t possibly leave a real nerd unmoved. Johnny Reviews Tonight The Secret of Monkey Island™: Special Edition for the PC, Xbox Live Arcade & iPhone! Featuring pirates, carnivals and ambient sound effects.

Monkey Island SE was stealth-released amongst the flutter of countless monocles and spillage of gallons of tea by surprised gentlemen everywhere. I thought I could resist its siren call and focus on a concurrent title but, come release day, I knew I just had to play and review it properly. Whether it matched my expectations or tarnished cherished memories, it would definitely make for a good show. So, the other review I was working on was put on hold and I barely didn’t make posting this before leaving for holiday again.

But it’s a great way to start September!

This is my first “straight-to-video” review: the script was written solely for a video version, as approaching this from both the perspective of someone who has played the original and of someone who had not, wouldn’t work as well on paper. It also contains a few spoilers, but I believe you can only pick them out if you already know what’s going on.

Back to Ciao! to review a high-profile release, this time Fable 2 for the X360 and, later, the PC.

I always have fun with the Fable games, if only because of the irony that even though they feature fantastic realms, grotesque monsters and larger-than-life heroes & villains, I always think of them as the most generic stories ever. In a word-association psychology test, I’d always answer “fable” to “fantasy” and vice versa.

Anyway, allow me to disclose my open letter to developer Lionhead‘s spearhead, Peter Molyneux.

I’m still waiting on that, but, even with the “bug”, Fable 2 was pretty enjoyable.

Starting off the year with a game that kept a low profile at the time but went on to start a blockbuster series: Assassin’s Creed for the X360, PS3 and, later, the PC.

Assassin’s Creed was a very divisive game that you could love as easily as you could hate and it was apparent which way the experience would go for you within the first hour of gameplay. I belonged to the former group and quite liked it… even though I vividly remember the ending making me furious.

Bioware, one of my all-time favourite developers, nick their flawless record by releasing the relatively botched Mass Effect for the X360.

In unrelated news, if you receive a complimentary review copy of a game and want that to keep happening, make sure to only write glowing reviews. Unless, of course, you care about things like integrity.

Anyway, back on topic, as this review predicted, the PC version came soon after and was indeed superior and worthy of purchase, even though it did stir up a lot of controversy with its overwhelming piracy protection measures. Overall, Mass Effect is poised to be a memorable trilogy, so long as the follow-ups show a bit more care and attention to detail than the original.

Another franchise I’ve loved since childhood and thus really wanted to take a shot at reviewing was Nintendo‘s exclusive Metroid. I finally pull the trigger over at Ciao! and review the culmination of its “Prime” rebirth.

Personally, I always liked the classic, side-scrolling, “Metroidvania”-styled games more than Retro Studios‘ FPS-esque take, but there is no denying that all three Primes were excellent games that made the most of the technology available to them: And there’s nothing truer to the spirit of the series than that.

Except maybe the endless exploration and the massive battles against gigantic bosses, but, wouldn’t you know it, they had those too! So, the question is, exactly how much did I like Corruption?