I was shocked to hear that not only one, but two new TV series based on fairy tales were premiering this season. ABC showed off its new series, Once Upon a Time, on Sunday while NBC aired its first episode of “Grimm” on Friday. Just from the title of both shows you can tell they both revolve around fairy tales of some sort or another, but the two shows are completely different. While Once Upon a Time is a family-friendly show that features many of the classic fairy tale characters, Grimm is a darker and more original show that uses fairy tales as the backdrop for totally original characters. Let’s look more into how these two shows compare.

Once Upon a Time centers around actual characters that we all know and love from the Brothers Grimm fairy tales and from Disney movies and include Snow White, Jiminy Cricket and Little Red Riding Hood. The evil queen from Snow White gets all bent out of shape because seeing everyone happy makes her unhappy, so she casts a curse on all fairy tale characters to get her revenge. All these characters are sent to the present-day town of Storybrook, Maine where they go about their everyday lives not knowing that they were once fairy tale characters. The only people who know are the the evil queen, who has made herself the mayor of the town, and the grandson of Snow White. Snow White’s daughter, Emma, is a bail bondswoman in Boston and happens to be the only fairy tale character to escape the curse (watch the show to find out how.) Emma’s son tracks her down and brings her to Storybrook where she is now trapped, as part of the curse stops anyone from leaving the town. So it seems that the show will be centered around these characters trapped in modern times as Emma works to break the curse. 

It is a “cute” show and I look at it as a guilty pleasure. It’s campy and silly, and the characters are not exactly original since the show is based on actual literary characters. The thing that I enjoy the most is the flashbacks, and they gave me fond memories of Lost. It seems that as the show progresses, not only will it follow the characters in Storybrook but also delve into their past through flashbacks. Also, while the evil queen seems to be the main villain right now, there have been hints that Rumpelstiltskin is a powerful and mysterious wizard of sorts with evil intentions of his own. These aspects of the show were enough to pique my interest and I’ll definitely be tuning in Sundays to watch.

Now when I first saw the teaser for Grimm, I said to myself, “oh great, another fairy tale stuck in modern times show.” I assumed it would be incredibly similar to Once Upon a Time, but you know what they say about assuming. I was proved dead wrong, as Grimm is almost the complete opposite of Once Upon a Time. Grimm centers around a detective named Nick who is one of the last blood descendants of the Brothers Grimm. The Grimm family has dedicated itself to hunting down abnormal creatures and protecting humans from them. This is where the main difference between Once Upon a Time and Grimm come clear: Grimm has a cast of all-original characters. It is also a darker show that I would not want my young children watching. The season premiere played out like a CSI-type show, with the detective tracking down a killer who was attacking young women.

I really liked the characters presented in the show compared to those of Once Upon a Time. The main character has just discovered he’s a descendant of the Grimm bloodline and is suddenly seeing werewolves (called blutbad in the show) and demons who are masquerading as humans. There’s no Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White or Prince Charming, and instead it’s generic monsters who will be causing trouble. These monsters fear the Grimm bloodline so Nick will now be a target as they attempt to steal some kind of artifact that is passed down between family members. The darker undertones and characters of the show (including a reformed blutbad who appears to be friendly) have got me hooked, and I’m really looking forward to where the show takes me.

So that’s the scoop on this season’s fairy tale shows. Once Upon a Time is a good show for kids, and for those of us who still have a little bit of a kid inside (guilty as charged). If you want something a bit darker and more original, Grimm is the way to go. I recommend both shows, but the storyline and characters of Grimm has me hooked a little more than Once Upon a Time does.

When I first saw and heard about Bayonetta, I wasnt interested. It looked like an unappealing God of War clone to me, and reminded me too much of Heavenly Sword, which was a game that looked cool but sucked when I played it. So I had no intentions of checking out Bayonetta. That is, until I played the demo. Then I changed my tune.

Without knowing too much about the game (from not reading up on it due to lack of interest), from the demo I can derive that you play as some hot chick who lives amongst a secret society. The game has her going off to fight a bunch of demons (some of which are HUGE). The main character is very interesting. As you control her, you fight with hand to hand combat and guns. As you defeat enemies, you can pick up their weapons…some of which are ridiculously huge. There is also some magic thrown in there to spicen things up.

One of the craziest things about the demo that snagged my attention was the combat itself. Aside from what I just mentioned, there were a few large enemies where, at the end, you had to finish the enemy off with some on-screen button prompts. By successfully doing this, her clothing comes off to reveal the fact that it is her hair. Then her hair turns into a monster’s mouth, and proceeds to bite the giant enemy in half. It was so unexpected, yet so cool to see a hair monster bite a huge chunk out of some other large monster.

In the end, the demo succeeded in blowing me away. I wish it was a little longer, but it was still enough to grab my interest and leave me wanting more. I will definitely be renting this game at some point when it comes out in January.

I sent Dragon Age Origins back to Gamefly today. I probably put about ten to twelve hours into it, and barely scratched the surface. Yet, from what I played, I know its a game that I HAVE to own. I was gunning to get Borderlands, but Dragon Age really blew me away, and I just have to have it as my next game. If I hadnt just bought MUA2, Uncharted 2, and WWE 2010 I would have been more inclined to keep it, but Ive been spending too much on games as it is. Regardless, it is safe to say that Dragon Age is the best RPG on the PS3 that I have played, and that says a lot based on how much I loved Sacred 2.

When you start a game, you create a new character by choosing the race, sex, and class. Then, you will select one of six “background stories” which introduce your character and the game. Which story you can choose depends on what kind of character you created. From there, you are thrust right into the game.

One of the biggest pros to Dragon Age is the concept of story. There is a huge story pertaining to the game, and this is expressed in a ridiculous amount of dialogue, probably more than Oblivion had. Also like Oblivion, the voice-acting is pretty spot-on and sounds great. Talking to individuals is key in this game, as you generally have at least three or four different ways to react to something someone says. You can be a jerk or you can be a butt kisser…what you choose determines how the game will proceed.

Building on this sense of dialogue is the relationships you build with your party. As you progress through the game you can recruit allies, and you can have up to three of them accompany your character in-game. Each character has a relationship meter, and this fluctuates based on the conversations you have with them. Also, to gain favor you can give party members gifts, which will increase your relationship. If the character is of the opposite sex, there is a chance that you will form an intimate relationship with them. I attempted this with the witch character, not to be a perv, but to get the trophy (there are four trophies, each one for getting into an intimate relationship with another character.)

The reason this is a good thing is that you form a physical attachment to your party. They are not just some soldier who’s name you dont know or some thief you can die for all you care…they are real characters, and because you are forced to interact with them so often, you find yourself growing attached to them. By the time I found my fifth and sixth allies, I could not bring myself to let them into my party because I enjoyed the other three so much. I knew so much about them and their back stories, that I did not want to part ways with them.

This whole concept of story is what makes the game a great RPG. Sure, RPGs have to have a good combat system, along with XP and item collecting, but an AWESOME RPG will have an engaging story to support it. Unfortunately, this was one of the downfalls of Sacred 2, in that the game focused squarely on combat and side quests to get XP and items, and it barely had a story to follow. Half the time I had no idea what I was doing or why I was doing it, but I was just following quest markers. That is not the case in Dragon Age.

So lets get into these characters more.

When you make a new character, you choose from the basic warrior, mage, or rogue class. The warrior class obviously is the up-close and personal fighter, mage uses magic, and the rogue is basically a thief with some sneaking and backstabbing abilities. However, each of these classes has four additional classes attached to it, that the character can basically be “promoted” to through the course of the game. A warrior can be a templar, which is a knight that is trained to specifically fight mages. The mage can learn to be a shapeshifter, where it can morph into different animals in order to dish out some close-range combat. The rouge can learn to be a bard, where they sing songs that either affect the party or enemies. These additional classes give the game a little more, as you can move away from the basic skills and attacks and learn some pretty cool abilities that are more powerful.

So Im trying to think of how to explain the combat of the game. Its all real-time, and you physically move your character with the analog. Hitting the X button will attack with whatever weapon is equipped, and the other three buttons are mapped to different abilities you have learned. So for my rogue, square does an attack that stuns enemies, triangle makes him nearly invisible, and circle is a special attack that penetrates armor more than a regular attack would. Additionally, holding R2 will bring up a second section of mapped abilities, so your character has a total of six abilities that are mapped to him at a time. The enemies come in a wide variety, from petty wolves and skeletons to huge demons and dragons, and then some Darkspawn and werewolves thrown in between, making for intense combat.

When in combat, your entire party is there also. In fact, your entire party is always there following you, unlike some games where only the main character is seen on screen when navigating the map or town. Hitting R1 or L1 will switch between which character you control, so you dont always have to play as your main character, which is cool. The other three who are not being controlled can either be given commands directly from a sub menu, or you can assign them a personality of sorts that dictates how they will fight in combat.

Combat is very violent. There is no end to the amount of decapitations and what not you will pull off, or the mutilated bodies you will come across. Also, one of the craziest things is that after battles, if you go into a dialogue scene, all the characters involved in the battle will be covered in the blood of their vanquished enemies. Another thing, while we’re on the subject of mature material, the game deals with rape quite a few times. Not that you do that, or see anyone do it, but its the subject of several conversations. The elf Im playing as right now is actually related to this subject, as the reason he is out exploring the world is because on his wedding day, his to-be wife was kidnapped by a lord and raped (kind of like Braveheart.) Also, there is a tribe of werewolves you will come across who were cursed because, as men, they raped a ten year old girl. Not that Im offended by this or anything, but its just a taboo subject that I dont think I have ever encountered in a game before, and if I have, definitely not in this much detail. While it doesnt bother me in the least, it may be a reason to keep the kids away from it.

As you fight, you can also pull up an items menu and use things such as healing and mana potions. You can only use these items on the character you are controlling, so if someone is in trouble you will have to switch to them and then heal them. As you walk across the area/map, you will stumble upon random encounters with a group of enemies. After each group is defeated, everyone in the party heals up their HP automatically. If anyone lost all their HP and fell in battle, they will be auto-revived, but will have an injury, such as head trauma or a torn jugular. These injuries affect their stats and ability to fight, so you will have to use a healing kit to patch them up. If all four characters lose all their HP and fall in battle, then its game over.

There is a main story to follow, and which dictates where you go overall. However, there are also a ton of side quests to be found. You can find them posted on boards in towns. You can get them from talking to individuals. You can also get them just by finding items on killed enemies or dead corpses you come across. The game seems to have a pretty large selection of side quests that can be taken on. Also, many quests can be solved in several different ways, depending on which actions you take during the quest.

One of my few disappointments was in movement on the map. Unlike Oblivion, it is not an entirely open world. Locations are set as markers, and you travel from marker to marker  by selecting it. A little icon appears on the map and you see it move between the two locations. Along the way it can come across random encounters, which will bring you to a map in which you have to kill off all the enemies to pass. The enemies are together in groups, so you have to explore the area and find all the groups before you exit.

Some areas are much more expansive, and are made up of several maps, where you get to an exit, and it brings you to the next area, so there is no need to travel via the big map. However, to get to towns and other key points, you will have to quick-travel via the big map. It would have been nicer to have it so that it was all an open-area like Oblivion and Fallout, but the area maps are big and expansive enough to kind of make up for it.

So I think thats most of what I want to say. Dragon Age definitely has the best story of any RPG the PS3 has to offer, so if you’re into that, then this game is for you. Its an engaging story, and your actions and what you say definitely have an impact on where the story goes. The combat is fun and fast-paced, and the character classes are all a blast to play as. The fact that there are six different unique stories to play through guarantee an awesome amount of replayability, which is something I value in any game. In the end, I would recommend this as being the number one game for anyone who enjoys in-depth RPGs.

Hillary fell at some point. Too bad she only broke her elbow. She can continue to do evil with a cast on.