Corpse Party (PSP)

Genre: Adventure/Horror Visual novel

Release Date: November 22, 2011 NA

Summary

It's an adventure/Visual novel game set in a haunted school filled with bodies and ghost. While this may sound kind of cliché (and at some extent it is)

this game has some nice little tweaks. 

One of the main draw of this game is the sound, It's been a while since I played an horror game with incredibly sound quality, I recommend to play itwith earphones all time because the voices and the sound you can hear in the "background" cannot be heard without them.

The voice acting is surprisingly good, altough is entirely in japanese (the text is in English) is top notch along the sounds. The characters are the typicalto be found in an horror anime/game but they become very likable over the course of the story. Speaking of this, the story revolves around a group of friends who perform a ritual to make their friendship last forever, however this go wrong and they are teleported to a haunted school in which in the past a serial killerbrutally killed 4 children sewing their tongues and to one little girl her entire head (yeah, lovable)

The game is divided into 5 chapters, in which you control the different characters of the group and see what happens to them; the school is nicely done with 2D graphicsvery similar to RPGMaker graphics (In fact, this game was made in RPGMaker or so I read) and while this reduces the scary factor, the game makes good useof the sounds and to describe what happens along with some static cutscene with incredibly resolution and detail.

Another nice detail is the save system, you save in some candles found in the school, and PER chapter you have 5 slots to save, along with a system save data slot.

This prove useful when you want to comeback to found students ID (used in the EX chapters that gives some background story and also you can see how or why they died) which adds replay value.

Fate Extra (PSP)

Genre: JRPG

Release Date: November 1, 2011 NA

Summary:

First I will clarify that I do not like the anime series, watched the first 6 episodes and bore me to death. But this game is fun nevertheless, it's not a great JRPGbut it's a nice one and it greats for the get-go.

You can choose being a boy or a girl who awakens in a world with no memories of his/her past, you can choose a servant (a human character which fight for you) from 3 different ones. The basically revolvesaround gathering clues of your past and advancing the story spending weeks in-game be it talking with your servants or to other people.

At the end of each day, you go to the arena: A dungeon that lets you to train your servant and raise his stats. The battle syste is simple and fun

is basically a turn based Rock-Paper-Scissors; you have three options : "Attack" ,"Break" & "Guard". Attack wins Break, Break wins Guard, and Guard wins Attack.

At the beginning of the turn you choose up to 6 moves, and if you let 3 attacks consecutevely you gain a bonus attack that cannot be countered.

Overall the game is pretty fun, the story is so-so but i like the rpg elements and the capacity of gathering clues and talk to the people to watch scenes of advance the story. It reminds mea little of Persona 3, which is always good.

Recommended for: Fate Stay fans - JRPG fans - People who has PSPs gathering dust again xD 

Sequence (PC/Available on Steam)

Genre: Rythm Game/RPG (yes, RPG)

Release Date: October 20, 2011 NA

Summary:

Sequence is a indie game which can be described in one word: Bizarre. It's a mix of Dance Dance Revolution with RPG elements (yeah, you read it right)

The story goes on like this: you wake up in a tower and apparently the only way out is to go up the seven floors and prove yourself worthy of being kidnapped(?)the story may no be the best part of Sequence, but it's nice and very light-hearted. To go up you need to make a key from different elements which are droppedby the monster lurking there.

The only way to defeat monster? You guessed it! You must challenge them to a rhytmical battle. Basically you have 3 panels: Defense, Mana, and Spelleach panel has the arrows ala DDR, so if you missed an arrow on the Defense field, you lose HP. If you make all the steps correct you won't get hurt.

The Mana field is used to charge mana (by pressing the arrows correctly) and then you can cast spells. When you cast a spell you must do certain stepsin the Spell Field, if you do all correct you will attack the monster, if not you will lose the mana it costed to cast the spell.

Sounds complicated but in the practice is pretty normal and fluid, it's really engaging but the only thing I kind of hate is the grinding for materials to make the keysand since you battle the same monsters on a same floor the music gets repetitive. Speaking of which the music is (so far) non-lyrical, with some influences in chill outand house music which I love.

After every battle you get rewards which varies from common to rare, with these rewards you can make the key to advance to the next floor or make some neat gearto improve your attack/defense, or make spell recipes in order to learn new spells.

You can buy the game on steam for $5, however i brought it for $2,50 which is always nice for a game like this.

Recommended for: DDR fans, Rythm music fans.

My recommendations:

1. Shadows of the damned. It is one ride trought hell that you will not forget.

2. To the Moon (PC). Just wow! It is one of my favourite games of all times.

3. Skyrim. Of course.

4. The Lord of the Rings: War in the North. Just because I am such a fan of the books.

1) Deus Ex: Human Revolution
2) Dead Space 2
3) LittlebigPlanet 2
4) Infamous 2
5) Uncharted 3: Drakes Deception

Xenoblade Chronicles - seriously I am so happy for Americans for getting this game (eventually) next year. Quite possibly the best RPG ever, and easily IMO the best since Skies of Arcadia.

I have to say that Orcs Must Die is surprisingly awesome, the best tower defence I have played, it combines 3rd person shooting and trap laying much better than Sanctum did it's only missing co-op.
In the end it's just a lot of fun to kill Orcs.
Available on XBLA and Steam

Binding of Isaac is also great a "twin-stick shooter" with randomised dungeons with a wide variety of powerups and enemies. Combining arcade shooting with a roguelike dungeon was genius.
Available on Steam

Dungeons of Dredmor is a great beginners rogue-like combining the randomised dungeons and turn based combat of a rogue-like with a modern UI is a great experience. Permadeath is the only way to play.
Available on Steam

Very good recommendations, shadow of the damned and to the moon are in my "To-Play" list, altough is kind of hard to get those game in my country.

Also, love the recommendations so far, but keep in mind to recommend games that went "under the radar", Skyrim, Dead Space and InFamous 2 are well know games xD

Ohh good ones, I was about to buy Binding of Isaac, it caught my attention on steam and was kind of cheap (don't know now)

Didn't know Orcs Must Die was on Steam, always tought it was an XBLA exclusive don't know why. I watched a couple of videos and the game seems pure fun. Do you know if can be played online or co-op offline? that would be a blast.

@MR.Tar : Yeah Xenoblade Chronicles is one heck of a game it has almost everything I wanted on an RPG. Truly an amazing RPG and one of the best of all time

Most of those aren't under the radar -_-

As for me, I'm an anti-hipster, I play only maintstream :3