I mentioned that one of the XBLA games I've been playing was Bastion. At first I thought I was more taken with Outland, which I bought at about the same time, but Bastion is really growing on me. I guess that makes sense, it's a game that relies heavily on your desire to collect!, upgrade!, and replay! The replay part of is actually my favorite so far. I started a New Game + immediately after I finished it because you get to start over with all your weapons and upgrades. Also, you make a couple binary choices at the end of the story that I'm sort of curious to see the effects of the opposite choice. Also, since I spent a good chunk of the original playthrough feeling underpowered and confused on which weapons (there are a lot) to use, I was excited to give it another go with a more powerful character and the knowledge of what weapons and upgrades I wanted to move towards.
Oh right, what kind of game is this? It's basically a top-down hack and slash with some RPG elements. The art style looks more sprite based than 3D-heavy, but it looks great. The story is purposely left pretty vague. You never even learn the name of The Kid that you control. The Old Man is your constant companion. Well, his voice is anyway. Think of it as a gravelly Tom Waits sound that narrates your almost every move. The amount of lines that guy had to record must have been insane. He'll often make reference to the fact that you have full health, what weapons you have equipped and sometimes just references to stuff you're doing. My favorite was him pointing out that "the Kid's smashing every bush he sees like there'll be some sort of prize." Basically pointing out the stupid video gamey concept of something like that.
This game is rich with different ways to play it based on all the weapon and upgrade combinations and it's as good as everyone says.
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