tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-48132469746739413222024-03-05T22:23:51.939-06:00New Game +Because, sometimes, a thousand words are better than a picture.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10849198565080158294noreply@blogger.comBlogger42125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813246974673941322.post-60415496874769980122013-04-29T22:47:00.000-05:002013-04-29T22:47:57.803-05:00Bring out yer dead! (TellTale's The Walking Dead, PC)<span style="color: red;">*SPOILER WARNING* </span><br />
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A slight warning to readers: while I will do my best to avoid specific spoilers. Since <i>The Walking Dead</i> is as much about the journey as it is the destination, even <i>generic </i>ones may end up removing much of the emotional punch that the game has to offer. Forewarned is fair warned. To those who want my suggestion without the spoilery details, know that the game comes highly recommended to both fans of the show/comic and newcomers alike.<br />
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Up until I played the game, I had never before read or seen <i>The Walking Dead</i> (TWD) in any other medium, so I was not entirely sure what to expect when I started playing. I had been hearing good things about the game, but my lack of investment in the series kept me from following it. Having received a few hearty recommendations from friends, I decided to give the game a try. What I ended up playing did not disappoint and remains one of the highlights of 2012, doing so well as a game that it sold me on the premise of the series and got me into the tv show and even comic. The game, though, stands out as the strongest of the three, and that has everything to do with TellTale's expertise in dialogue, story telling and characters.<br />
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Aside from the whole 'zombie apocalypse' thing, TWD is firmly rooted in being a realistic portrayal of 'normal' people desperately trying to survive the end of the world. The series is built around the question "What would you do to survive in a world bent on killing you?" As a player, you will get to live these decisions on your own choice and decide how you should react to events. <br />
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While TWD is sprinkled with Quick Time Events and standard fare inventory/environment management puzzles, most of the real gameplay comes by way of dialogue options with other characters. You decide almost (if not all) of Lee's (the main chracter) interactions with other characters. Each conversation choice will prevent with several options to choose from, with 'say nothing' even being an option in most cases. Decisions (or indecisions) you make can directly affect the story and will definitely change how other characters perceive you and interact with you in future situations.<br />
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However, you are not given an infinite amount of time to think about the decisions before you have to act. Almost all of them are 'real time' decisions, and while this may sound frustrating it actually makes the decisions you make feel far more natural and impactful. It actually helps reduce the urge to 'min/max' the game to try to make 'perfect' decisions and instead brings out more basic instincts and really prove who you are and what you would do when placed on the spot. Much of the impact of the gameplay occurs outside of the 4-5seconds you have to decide, as you personally come to grips with what made you make that split second decision and how you are going to deal with the repercussions.<br />
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While it can be frustrating that 'major' decisions are not explicitly labeled as such, I found that by not doing this, Telltale made the rest of the game more engaging. By not knowing which decisions are considered 'major' and which ones are just fluff conversation pieces, each conversation becomes important as you have no indication otherwise. It helps lend additional weight to the feeling that every decision is important and can have an impact on how the story plays out and how people react to you.<br />
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Speaking of characters, Telltale does an extremely good job of creating believable characters, situations and dialogue that helps emphasize their growth and place in the world. This is crucial for a world like TWD where characters are by no way guaranteed to make it past the next hour, let alone by the end of the game. It helps to make decisions more personal and more engaging when you have a level of investment in actual characters as opposed to nameless fodder and helps to give TWD that extra emotional punch that sets it above the pack. <br />
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The story and gameplay are also well paced throughout most of the episodes. Your time will swap between light puzzles (which are all very logical and do not involve trying to combine every weird combination of items you can pick up), conversation and quick action (QTEs). This helps to cover up one of the few flaws the game has, which is it's not much of a "game". Light, easy puzzles, QTEs and selecting dialog choices does not make for incredibly compelling gameplay. However, since it's paced well (and the story/characters are engaging enough) the game rarely begins to feel tired or samey and helps to keep you playing. Recapping major decisions at the end of each episode (and showing comparisons vs. other players) helps to keep the impact of your choices in mind and gives a good conversation starter for seeing how you and your friends played differently.<br />
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Possibly the only other complaint I would have - and one that I really only got after reading up on the game after completing it - was the fact that, over time, many of your decisions still do not "matter". If you just play the game through once, though, you would be hard pressed to notice it... in fact, the choices and story are so well placed that they VERY successfully give you the illusion of choice, even while rarely providing it.<br />
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<span style="color: red;">*WARNING*: Continuing on to the next section is probably the most spoilery part, so if you are still trying to read this and want to avoid spoilers, DO NOT CONTINUE TO READ :*WARNING*</span><br />
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While most of your decisions will have short term impacts (who lives, who dies, who goes and who stays), very few have long term decisions as plot points tend to neatly tie themselves up one way or another. Did you piss someone off early? They might 'forget' if you help them on something later. Were you a helpful saint or a ruthless tyrant? Doesn't matter!<br />
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Now I'm not saying there are <i>no</i> decisions that have a meaningful impact, as some do and the rest are masterfully crafted to feel that way. But take a peek behind the curtain and it just doesn't feel as magical as it is if you don't. It is one of the few times that replaying the game can actually make the entire experience <i>worse</i>, not better.<br />
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Overall, <i>The Walking Dead</i> is a strong game and a breath of life into the well-tread Adventure genre. The game is not perfect, but it's a solid first offering and I look forward to how they improve in "Season 2".Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10849198565080158294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813246974673941322.post-2479421644412491032012-07-22T00:19:00.001-05:002012-07-22T00:19:08.114-05:00On the Rain-Slick Precipice of AwesomeSometimes, when a game franchise switches developers mid-stream, things go awry. It just isn't as good anymore. Things are different for no good reason. New gimmicks are introduced. It just doesn't <i>work</i>. <br />
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Penny Arcade's <i>On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3</i> is the exception.<br />
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The first two episodes looked pretty good, yes. All the concept art came directly from the source and was turned into pretty backgrounds and character designs by professional animators. You (yes, <i>you</i>) were even a player in the game! Personally, though, I always thought the best part of the first two games was the writing, which came straight from the source, unfiltered. As a result, the games are intensely funny. However, I never thought they were really terribly great <i>games</i>. The combat was repetitive and a tad boring, and I thought the attempts to inject action-RPG elements into the game always fell a bit flat. <br />
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That said, I think I speak for both proprietors of this here blog when I say that we were kind of disappointed that the third game apparently wasn't going to come out. Hothead (the previous developer) and Penny Arcade had, uh, differences and they split up. Making up for it, PA published what is essentially a <a href="http://www.rainslickgame.com/chapters/list" target="_blank">novelization of the plot of the third game</a> online. (As one might guess, that link is pretty much 100% spoilers.) <br />
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And then, a simple page appeared in our programs at PAX 2011.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.rainslickgame.com//assets/img/img_rspd3_lrg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://www.rainslickgame.com//assets/img/img_rspd3_lrg.jpg" width="237" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It was like this, except there wasn't a date on it yet.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Could it be? Yes, it was. And now it is. Zeboyd Games is pretty much two dudes who develop retro-style console RPGs with modern sensibilities. Though I was not familiar with their previous work, I had at least heard of it from hanging out on the Penny Arcade forums, which is where they started their enterprise. Suffice it to say, these dudes have a healthy respect for the source material.<br />
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This game picks up where the 2nd left off. The player is no longer represented in the game with a character, and there is no way to import your character into the new generation of games. Like I said, since to me the best part of the previous games was the writing, I don't view this as a terribly big loss. Speaking of which, the writing is great in this game too, as it's pure Tycho (Jerry Holkins). The story that I linked to above was expanded, messages, and adapted for the game by Tycho, and all the other text you need for a game (item descriptions, flavor text, etc.) were also written by the man himself. Suffice it to say, this is the funniest game I have played since the last Rain Slick game. (Yes, Portal 2 was funny, but there's something about poking fun at RPG tropes while playing a RPG to be really hilarious.)<br />
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I've basically been paying for Tycho's writing for years by purchasing all the Penny Arcade books, so I would basically like anything that had most of the text written by him. However, unlike the first two games, this game is also <i>fun</i>.<br />
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Okay, yes, there's a bit of grinding in some places, but that's part and parcel of the retro feel. The vast majority of the game aims to recreate the experience of the 16-bit SNES heyday of the console RPG. However, there are modern sensibilities. The squad regains their health after every battle, for instance. There is a pretty cool class system, allowing each character in the party to have up to two sub-classes. (Examples of classes in the game include "slacker", "cordwainer", and "hobo".) These sub-classes grant additional actions and abilities.<br />
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Items work in a similar manner. Items have two sorts of upgrades: quantity (the number of times per battle the item can be used) and quality (the level of the item). Characters can also use magic, as dictated by their classes. Every battle turn each character gains 1MP, with various items and abilities allowing one to gain MP more quickly. The turn systems itself is worthy of note, more akin to something one would find in a modern RPG. All characters and enemies appear on a timeline, with two parts: waiting to get an action, and then shortly afterward, actually doing said action. The key drama here is whether one's speedier characters can pass enemies before they act. There is also one sub-class that can manipulate the flow of action, such as kicking enemies out the short period between when they enter and action and before they act on it. I know this sounds complicated, but it works pretty well in practice. And, most importantly, it's a lot of fun.<br />
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And as previously said, I didn't really say "fun" in relation to the gameplay in the first two games a whole lot.<br />
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Many folks would pay $25 for a game like this. More would pay $15. What if I said this game was only $4.99 though? That's a downright steal. Even better, it's on <a href="http://www.rainslickgame.com/order" target="_blank">Steam and XBox Live Arcade</a>.<br />
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<i>asim's "tl;dr" summary</i>: This game is more fun than many games that cost 12 times as much. There's almost nothing to lose by getting this game and it's the most intentionally funny game that's come out since the last Rain Slick game.<br />
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<b>Other stuff</b>: Yeah, I was going to write a <i>Mass Effect 3</i> review. But it might be awhile before I'm ready to approach that minefield again. Not sure how much there's left to say about it at this point. It was sort of like that Steven Spielberg move <i>A.I.</i>. It was really good until the last 45 minutes.asimpersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15662230873832312065noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813246974673941322.post-25720020126535767262012-07-21T01:26:00.003-05:002012-07-21T01:26:22.605-05:00Reap on Ye Reaper Man*** BEWARE! Here there be spoilers!! ***<br />
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(Note: I began writing this after completing ME3 and before the release of the extended edition, so I just left my thoughts on the original ending in place instead of redoing it AGAIN. Those who know how long it takes me to do these and yet still read these for whatever reason will appreciate that).<br />
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After having a few discussions with friends, I'm getting to the point that I feel speaking about Mass Effect 3 as a whole is becoming increasingly unavoidable. The amount of forum discussions (or, more appropriately, whining), press, and commentators taking shots at it is starting to get at me.<br />
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If you remember my <a href="http://gatechsavvy.blogspot.com/2010/10/worlds-worst-space-mining-simulator.html">Mass Effect 2 Review</a>, I gave the game pretty high praise overall, and for good reason. Even after another playthrough in prep for <i>ME3</i>, <i>ME2 </i>remains extremely compelling and continues to prove it's worth as one of the best games of this generation.<br />
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<i>ME3 </i>is largely the same, with a few hit-or-miss tweaks thrown in to try and fix what was "broken" in the previous game. Some things that it does get right it does quite well: the weapon upgrade system is a welcome improvement from <i>ME2 </i>without being the confusing, inventory-crushing mess from the first game. Each weapon type (pistol, shotgun, smg, etc) have several different guns to choose from, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. You can buy better versions of specific weapons to improve their overall stats (weigh less, more accurate, etc) as well as add in 2 'mods' that allow you to more drastically change their usage. Maybe you want that shotgun increase your melee damage capabilities, just in case husks get a bit too close for comfort, while someone else might just want their shots to pierce through more armor. The system allows for a fair number of combos that really help you work with your class and preferred playstyle.<br />
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There is an even bigger choice when choosing weapons this time around, in that the amount of 'weight' you carry directly affects your power cooldown rates. So any class - not just a soldier - can load themselves up with all 5 weapons and go to town, but an adept's biotic powers will be significantly impaired. Unfortunately, I find that the balance tends to skew a bit too much towards going as light as possible: you can carry an SMG, pistol and assault rifle and still be near the 200% cooldown reduction mark, making powers EXTREMELY quick to fire off. Giving them even just a moderate number of skill points makes many of them very powerful, and since powers do not have "ammo" and weapons do, it helps to encourage really relying on your power pool to burn through enemy units. Having power cooldowns be a bit longer would've made them feel less 'spammy' and made the choice to use a power feel more impactful (going back to the 'infinite ammo' model from the <i>ME1 </i>days might have helped too). <br />
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Some 'improvements', however, feel more like a step backwards than a step forwards. I never thought they could make a system even less engaging than the planet scanning system from <i>ME2</i>, but I was very wrong. After spending a few attempts at randomly 'pinging' planets in <i>ME3 </i>and constantly hearing the LOUD BLARE REAPERS INCOMING! sound over and over, I was ready to go back to <i>ME2 </i>planet scanning just for some peace of mind. It doesn't help that this system is propped up almost entirely upon checkbox-style fetch quests that have no real gameplay on offer. Some of them even talk like perhaps they had been planned out as real missions at one point (please, we need you to go down to our planet and save our people!) but end up being nothing more than pressing down a single button to complete it. <br />
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The cover system also is starting to feel a little bloated and unwieldy, especially since so many actions are mapped to the same button. Take cover, jump, dodge, revive, sprint and vault are all mapped exactly the same and I often times found myself doing one of them when I really meant to do another one (like taking cover instead of reviving a companion, or vice versa). There are also several problems with cover as a whole, like some areas that appear to have space for you to shoot over but don't allow it, or cover that you look around and it points you straight into another object that blocks most of your abilities and shots. The over-abundance of grenades on harder single player difficulties also makes cover more frustrating than fun, as trying to find a place to reload or regen shields that isn't bathed in bullets means you are instantly greeted with 5 perfectly thrown grenades, ready to flush you back out into the shooting gallery. I understand you might want to make players shake things up and prevent turtling or overly-defensive play, but making your game utilize cover mechanics with such importance and then constantly punishing your players for using it doesn't seem like a very good use of the system.<br />
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The single player game was overall very impressive, but definitely left me scratching my head a few times. On one hand, the level of detail and amount of 'fan service', cameos, tie-ins and connections to previous Mass Effect games and decisions is absolutely astonishing. In fact, so much content is connected to previous games in some way that the 'new' characters and are few, far and in between and feel overall much weaker. While every decisions you ever made may not end up being the butterfly effect that destroys entire worlds, many of them come back to change small things or, at "worst", be mentioned in a few lines of dialogue. This, in and of itself, is incredible to me: the number of potential permutations is astonishing and really helps to reinforce that this is YOUR game, not anyone else's. (More on this later, as this is by and large the reason I wanted to write this review) The single player game took me over 50 hours to complete on the hardest difficulty (which was slightly easier than an <i>ME2 </i>insanity playthrough), so the content on offer here is very substantial.<br />
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On top of single player of course is the multiplayer addition, which surprisingly does not feel as lame or tacked on as I thought it would be. The idea is relatively simple - a very basic 'horde mode' type gameplay with different potential enemy types, maps, and difficulties to choose from - but is layered with interesting choices in terms of your chosen class, weapons, and mods. Unfortunately, the whole multiplayer affair seems to be designed as a long-term monetization scheme, relying on a 'booster pack' system to unlock new weapons, characters, mods and powerups. You can unlock them all simply by playing the game, but <i>chances </i>at rare items will require you to beat 3-4 missions to afford enough in game currency for one 'pack', meaning you'll be puting in hundreds of hours into the game just to try and unlock one specific item or class that you'd really like to play. I would've preferred a system where you can just buy whatever specific item you'd like, but then again I've never liked the 'booster pack' mentality in <i>any </i>form. I suppose there is some portion of our brains that loves that RNG, lottery-style system of acquiring upgrades, but having to play for several hours just to buy a <i>chance </i>at an item really kills it for me.<br />
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I also wish that the classes would've been treated like they are in single player, where you start with half your skills and earn the second half through leveling, as starter characters are EXTREMELY weak due to having almost no skill points. It takes being almost level 12 or 13 before you start seeing your powers and weapons have significant effect on enemies, and while you do level relatively fast if you do well, having to be ineffectual in 1-2 games just to get to the point you can be useful just does not feel very cool. And while we're on the topic of character powers, why can you not remap them? Some characters have the same abilities mapped to different buttons, and it becomes VERY CONFUSING swapping between them.<br />
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Overall, I'd say multiplayer was a welcome addition to the game, but I'd like to have seen it be used a bit less as a post-retail monetization scheme and more about getting to fight big waves of enemies with your friends. Also, let's be a little less brutal on the galactic readiness decay next time, ok?<br />
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So we've established that the game is a very strong entry into the series, chock full of some amazing content and, while not perfect, definitely worth a playthrough. So why did I feel so strongly about writing this if it's nothing more than a strong-but-not-stellar entry into a popular franchise you've probably played already anyway? Simple: the overly dramatic fan response to the ending. I have it on top of the review, but I'll put it here again just to make sure you are really interested in continuing on, full spoilt.<br />
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*** BEWARE! Here there be spoilers!! ***<br />
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I've heard many complaints about the ending, and while some are definitely valid (the ending is somewhat confusing and disappointing), I think by and large they miss the mark/point and take a very narrow minded approach to defining the 'ending' and band wagoning has taken it to even greater whiney heights than it really deserves. Allow me to do what I can to explain why I'm disappointed - but not RAWRRAWRRAWR ANGRY - at the game's ending by going through some of their major complaints.<br />
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<b>1) Normandy/Squadmates escape through a mass effect jump</b><br />
This one resonates the most with me, because I asked myself the same question as I watched it. A team member who was on the grund with me ended up on the normandy, taking a mass effect jump as it was 'blowing up', and ends up on the random planet with joker/<other choice="" depending="" on="">. While it is not <i>explicitly </i>explained how much time it takes to perform the final sequences of ME3 after you get hit by the giant reaper lazer beam (so technically this is possible, if not still questionable), it seems unlikely that the normandy would reroute to earth, pick up your squadmates that more or less abandoned the cause at the "all or nothing" moment (or were somehow incapacitated with you and saved by someone??) and then proceeds to fly <i>away </i>while the rest of the fleet still fights off the reapers. This one's for the angry people, because I definitely agree these actions don't seem to fit in even the craziest of theories.</other><br />
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<b>2) Mass Effect Relay destruction is supposed to cause total system annihilation!</b><br />
This one I don't agree with at all. The argument here is that in <i>ME2's </i>DLC 'Arrival', you destroy a mass effect relay and that ends up causing the entire system to be wiped out. However, not only does ONE event not a pattern make, but the ways in which they are destroyed are very different. In arrival, you destroy a mass effect relay by <i>running an asteroid into it. </i>This is a completely uncontrolled, brute force method that has (predictably) unintended consequences. Whatever causes the relayed to stop functioning in <i>ME3 </i>is NOT, in any way, required to have the same side effects. It is roughly equivalent to saying that because you ran a train into your car to stop and the car exploded, turning the keys to the 'off' position will <i>also </i>cause the car to explode. No points for the whiners on this one.<br />
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<b>3) Entire races are stranded and this is completely ignored!</b><br />
This is a little of yes and a little of no. It is true that the <i>fleets </i>of many of these races are now stranded in the Sol system, but it can be presumed all fleets (except probably the quarians) are <i>not </i>the entirety of those races. They have a chance to continue living on their own home planets regardless of where the bulk of their military force is now caught.<br />
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While it is true we don't know what happens to the fleet that gets stranded, I'm somewhat glad we don't. The amount of things that <i>could </i>happen there is extremely numerous (especially given your actions in the game), and I'd rather be <i>involved </i>in that playing out than just watching it happen in some kind of CGI or conversation. However, none of this has anything to do with the main point of the three mass effect stories - the reapers - and really acts as additional <span class="query_h1" id="query_h1">dénouement to Shepard's final actions, but I'm not too torn up that it is left out. I can see some people wanting to know, but honestly you could go down that road for a LONG time before everything was finally wrapped up in a neat little bow. Sometimes it's just better to let people imagine the details while you fill in the major events. We'll call this one even, though, just to be fair to those who might have specific major events or characters they would've liked to see wrapped up a bit more nicely.</span><br />
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<b><span class="query_h1" id="query_h1">4) War Assests don't matter!</span></b><br />
<span class="query_h1" id="query_h1">This is also tricky. They do matter (it can change potential ending options and even the eventual fate of earth), but it probably feels very ineffective compared to the amount of 'options' presented in <i>ME2</i>. </span><br />
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<span class="query_h1" id="query_h1"><b>5) </b><b>None of my choices matter!</b></span>
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This is probably one of the more offensive complaints. If you think none of your choices matter because everything doesn't get plugged into some equation and directly affect the games "ending", then you clearly weren't paying attention to the <i>entire rest of the game </i>when choices you made not only in this game but also in previous ones made direct impacts to the events, stories, and even well-being of both your squadmates and the galaxy at large. You decide how to cure the Genophage, you decide how to deal with the Quarians and Geth, you decide how to deal with Cerberus... the list is pretty substantial. Honestly, I think that if you treat the entirety of <i>Mass Effect 3</i> as 'the ending' (which, given the context of the events relative to the entirety of the story, it kind of is) then there are many subplots that are resolved almost exclusively by your action(s).<br />
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<b>6) But the ending is just a giant Deus Ex Machina!</b><br />
This is also a frustrating excuse. Did you not pay attention to the first part of the game? Your character stumbles face-first into a magical device that is supposed to be the Prothean's secret answer to beating the reapers, and you spend the entirety of the game chasing down some completely arbitrary solution that is conveniently never mentioned before in any other game despite the Reaper menace being very real and very known (by you and several others) throughout the entire series. Why is <i>this </i>wordlessly accepted at face value, but then seeing solution being some thing we've never seen before (which, duh) cause such vitriol? I vividly remember thinking to myself at about the hour 2 or 3 mark that I felt this would be a pretty sad way to end the series by just building some kind of special device that just hands me the victory after fighting on the ground against reaper agents all these years... so by that standard, the ending is actually a kind of improvement (yes, it still just wins it for me, but I had to fight tooth and nail to get it all back and ended up having an option of how to win and what that would mean). Point here is, yes, the ending <i>can </i>be viewed as a giant Deus Ex Machina, but then you're really just saying that the whole game is one.<br />
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There is more, but at this point, it does seem rather moot. Bioware released an 'extended cut' that very likely makes none of the haters happy and adds nothing of significant value to those who thought it was fine before (aside from longer, unnecessary ending sequences) and the whole thing has kind of died down. But when I sit down and look and see people trying to sue Bioware for 'false advertising' or report them to the BBB (or, worse, voting EA into the golden poo award simply for a lackluster ending to a video game), I really have to wonder where some of you people place your priorities. Or maybe I'm just not as diehard into games and needing closure to all my fantasy universes to be as perfect as I can pretend imagine it. I will say good on those who voiced their complaints or wrote about their dissatisfaction in a way that the developer can use and take with them to make their next series better.<br />
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It may not have been a perfect ending, and I'll certainly add my voice to those of us worried about it happening because it was rushed versus just trying something new, but to let the (relatively unimportant) final 10 minutes of a game ruin an otherwise amazing 150 hour trilogy because the known end goal (beat the reapers, save the galaxy!) was not well executed just seems.... unfortunate. If you've played <i>ME1 </i>and <i>ME2</i>, get <i>ME3</i>, enjoy <i>ME3</i>, and then *maybe* be disappointed at how it all ends. You'll still enjoy the 50 hours it took you to get there, that is almost guaranteed.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10849198565080158294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813246974673941322.post-23598843092716716132012-03-21T19:05:00.001-05:002012-03-21T19:05:21.163-05:00Settin' Me Up With the Spirit in the Sky[Not sure this was clear <a href="http://gatechsavvy.blogspot.com/2012/01/portable-game-triple-pack.html" target="_blank">last time around</a>, so to be sure, asim here with you again.] <br />
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So let's review a game that's been released in the past six months for a change. I'm talking about, of course, everyone's favorite reason to actually turn their Wii on again, <b>The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword</b>. <br />
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Zelda games are, of course, Nintendo's second most-venerated franchise. When it comes to me, however, these games are number one. So in some ways I'm very biased toward liking these games, but on the flip side that means I tend to be critical of them simply because my expectations are higher. Let's step back in time in a bit and examine what I mean.<br />
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Probably one of the first games I ever beat all the way through by myself was <b>Link to the Past</b>. I didn't own it, however, so to do so I continually borrowed the game from a friend who lived in my neighborhood off-and-on for a year until I finally prevailed. Then, in 1998, I got <b>Ocarina of Time</b>. However, being 13 at the time, I still had little control over how I got games, which means my explicit instructions to my parents on how to procure the <a href="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v650/finngamer/IMG_0290.jpg">gold cartridge version</a> didn't quite get through. I got over that (well, sort of) and as I did I realized that I was playing probably one of the greatest games ever made.<br />
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Debates rage on across the Internet over that last statement there, but for me it is still true. I don't really play the Mario games, so instead of Mario 64 Ocarina was the title that showed me the power of this new-fangled 3D thing. If you look hard enough on the Internet, you can even find videos of me playing this game somewhat badly. It remains one of my favorite games, and is the standard by which I have judged all subsequent Zelda games.<br />
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Ocarina was probably also the game that got me into "gaming" as a <i>thing</i> and becoming cognizant of the nascent Internet gaming websites and communities. (Remember, it was <i>1998</i>.) I remember debating kids at middle school the value of in-game rendering versus Final Fantasy VII's pre-rendered cutscenes. (Fun fact: I never had a non-Nintendo console until I got my first job five years ago and bought a 360.) I don't know if I would call myself from back then a <i>fanboy</i>, but I certainly had an <i>opinion</i>.<br />
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Thousands of other teenage boys also had opinions, and as the N64 era ended and Nintendo announced its new console, a demo appeared. I think anyone who paid attention to gaming news at the time probably remembers <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBtAvX4Pkyk" target="_blank">that video</a>. It was determined: we were going to get another epic Zelda game in the same vein as Ocarina, just with better graphics! Three long years later...<br />
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<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/30/Wind_waker_1080p.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/30/Wind_waker_1080p.jpg" /></a></div>
Not so much. Oh, the wailing and gnashing of keyboards! Of course, if one got away from the keyboard long enough and actually played <b>The Wind Waker</b>, they found it was actually pretty good. And you know what? I think stylistically, Wind Waker has held up pretty well and I'm glad to see that Nintendo has preserved the style for the DS Zelda games. So, to reference another classic rock lyric, I didn't get what I wanted, but in a way, I got what I needed.<br />
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Nonetheless, the wailing and the gnashing and whatnot continued, and eventually Nintendo announced it was developing one last Zelda game for the GameCube. Well, like with <a href="http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/09/15" target="_blank">many other games</a>, one last game for the 'Cube turned into a launch title for the Wii, and so I got my copy of <b>Twilight Princess </b>before I ever actually acquired a Wii. Since it was right when I moved to California, I remember about this time five years ago I was wrapping up that game, in much the same way I just finished Skyward Sword. <br />
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And I have to say, I mean, I <i>liked </i>Twilight Princess, but... I sort of wish it had never come out on the Wii. The tacked-on motion controls were just that, and it showed. Additional evidence that the game was a relatively last-minute port job was the fact the game world was actually <i>mirrored</i>, as Link is stilled properly left-handed in the GameCube version. Other than the controls, though, TP was a pretty standard Zelda game, and since the controls weren't really that great, that mean the game wasn't really that great. In some ways, in releasing the game "everyone" said they <i>wanted</i>, it was almost like Nintendo said, "see, we made the Zelda game you said you wanted, now do you see what we're trying to do?"<br />
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Now flash forward to PAX2011, where I got the chance to play Skyward Sword for the first time. I was impressed but afraid the new, <i>actual</i> motion controls (thanks to the Wii MotionPlus stuff) wouldn't really work out. Well, they did, which means I feel pretty good about saying this has been the most fun I've had playing Zelda since Ocarina. Since this one of (if not) the last major titles that will come out of the Wii, one would expect a certain amount of polish, and it is there for this game. I think one of my favorite things is the way the game handles drawing objects in the distance. Instead of fading into a fog or popping in, the game gracefully degrades textures until they look like something out out of an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressionism" target="_blank">Impressionist</a> painting. Simply put, this is the best looking Zelda game ever made and probably the best looking game on the Wii. I would think that this game is probably about all the console is capable of.<br />
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Let me go back to the controls for a second. Okay, they're not <i>perfect</i>, but fortunately the game makes it easy enough to calibrate things when they get out of whack. So the vast majority of the time, when you slash sideways, so does Link. When you slash diagonally across an enemy, so does Link. This manner of control adds a whole new layer of depth, which means overall in this game there aren't as many enemies, but there is more <i>depth</i> simply because almost all enemies are capable of blocking your attacks if you don't approach them correctly. It also means that there are new items and new puzzles. Yes, that's right kids, "move the blocks to a certain configuration" puzzles are at an all-time low in this game. <br />
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So at this point, I suppose I should list some things I didn't like about this game. The only thing that really sticks out to me is that I found the soundtrack somewhat unremarkable, but, uh, that's probably about it. The only other thing that I can think of is that the Wii MotionPlus thing can really chew through batteries, but my initial playthrough also went on for over 60 hours. (<b>Last minute edit</b>: Just a couple of weeks ago and 40 hours of playtime later, I re-beat the game on Hero Mode, where your collectible inventory is preserved but you have to replay the game and enemies do twice as much damage while never dropping hearts. Take the fact I did that how you will.)<br />
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<i>asim's "tl;dr" summary</i>: This is the best and most original Zelda game since Ocarina of Time and is an excellent reason to dust-off your Wii.<br />
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<b>Addendum</b>: Yes, I realize I sort of skipped over <b>Majora's Mask</b>. Well, that's sort of because I skipped over it when I was kid. Sorry. I did get for Virtual Console though and I'm working on it.asimpersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15662230873832312065noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813246974673941322.post-57272298037849829252012-03-21T18:11:00.000-05:002012-03-21T18:11:17.337-05:00World of Iterate-craftI've had a few people over time ask me to write my thoughts on <b>World of Warcraft</b> for various reasons: some were curious of what I thought about it, some wondered exactly how I would tear it down and some just wanted me to write about games they had actually played so that they could agree or disagree in the comments.<br />
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I've had a really hard time figuring out exactly how to do this. How does one write a review about a game that is evolving and expanding so quickly and so much that after as little as 2 years the game has been altered on almost every level? Reviews like this become stale and meaningless in a world where the game doesn't remain constant. That's not to say that snapshots in time or thoughts on a current direction aren't warranted, but for someone like me who invests his time in this only to still be behind the times by several months, it seemed like an impossible task. There are also so many aspects of the game that I don't play or particularly care about (like arenas, battlegrounds, 25 man raiding or dps) that overall the review just wouldn't be very interesting to a very large audience.<br />
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I, however, am not one to back down from a challenge and so I'm going to attempt to do my best to cover a bit of the general game's history and current condition, as well has how it has evolved itself - and the genre - over time. I don't really feel this will be a terribly useful review for someone who has never heard of WoW or mmos at all, but for someone who is at least familiar with it it may provide some insight as to just how far Blizzard has taken their mammoth mmo in the past 6-7 years, and perhaps where they could be going or areas I feel they could still improve.<br />
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When it first started, <b>World of Warcraft</b> was known (and highly praised) for taking a lot of the grueling punishment and work out of an mmo and instead attempting to streamline it for a slightly more casual audience. I say 'slightly' because most people who are only familiar with Wrath of the Lich King and beyond have no idea of much much MORE streamlined the game became in the 4 years following its already impressive launch. Reputation grinds were far more common (and more tedious) in vanilla, raid content was 'gated' to players both inside (staggered numbers available per week) and out (strict limitations for 'earning' your ability to get into an Onyxia, BWL or Naxxramas instance). The game was a HUGE time and gold sink by today's standards, even though it was better overall than most other products by not severely penalizing you for death and even adding 'dungeon' tiers for people who did not often raid. As it moved forward, Blizzard eventually began adding 20 man content (instead of the current standard of 40) to promote a smaller guild and smaller team environment that were unique from their 40 man counterparts, and updated 5 man gear to give even smaller groups something to work on.<br />
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Original WoW also saw a few iterations on a 'PvP' style system. While they had no reward structure to speak of at launch, they started by offering rewards for simply killing one another but eventually added more goal oriented 'battlegrounds' such as Capture the flag (Warsong Gulch) or Capture/Defend (Arathi Basin). PvP was excessively grindy and the absolute best rewards were only given to those capable of dedicating the highest amount of time to it. Being a top-tier PvPer in vanilla almost assuredly meant you did nothing but play WoW (or had multiple people playing the same account).<br />
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<b>The Burning Crusade</b> moved everything one step further, adding new 'tiers' for players that helped to segregate content out a bit more by skill or dedication. Dungeons would have both a 'normal' and a 'heroic' mode, which would allow leveling and 'casual' players to experience all 5 man content without feeling too overwhelmed by difficulty or time commitment (though many normals were still considered quite a challenge when under-geared). 'Heroic' dungeons added the next step up in difficulty and gave the more dedicated player a place to go for pre-raid gear that also allowed you a way to farm reputation for different factions while you played. There was a sort of 'gate' to this content in that you needed a friendly reputation with specific factions to unlock those heroics, which made gearing up alt characters or players who joined a bit late difficult. <br />
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Blizzard also began a movement forward with TBC of completely abandoning the 40-man raid model and instead focusing on smaller 25 man groups. Blizzard also offered an olive branch to even smaller guilds by starting the expansion off with a 10 man raid: Karazhan. TBC would eventually also see a 2nd 10 man raid in Zul'Aman, but otherwise the rest were 25 man raids.<br />
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Raid gating was more abundant but (somewhat) less difficult depending on the place. Karazhan had a fair amount of 5 man content that was required to complete before being unlocked, but only 1 person in the group would need it to open it for everyone else. 25 man content had a more fine-grained content lockout system that generally required guilds to defeat easier bosses before they could unlock harder ones, but this really only became a problem as newer guilds formed later in the expansion and had to go redo content over again to unlock it for newer players. (Fun fact: Blizzard actually poked fun at themselves that year with an <a href="http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/btattunement/">April Fools joke</a> detailing a laughably ridiculous set of rules and circumstances required to get Black Temple Attunement). It did, however, help keep older content 'relevant' later into the expansion, even if only by force.<br />
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TBC added some new PvP toys - Arena matches (2v2, 3v3, 5v5 deathmatch) and a new battleground, removing much of the absurd grinding requirements while pushing WoW towards a more 'esport' style pvp system while still allowing for more 'casual' battleground style pvp. <br />
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<b>Wrath of the Lich King</b>, to me, feels like the first time Blizzard really started taking this plan of 'give everyone something to play' to heart. Building on the popularity of Karazhan and Zul'Aman, blizzard made EVERY raid in WotLK both 10 and 25 man capable. The new 'path' was meant to be: Level --> Normal dungeons --> heroic dungeons --> 10 man raids --> 25 man raids, and as such, 25 man content still contained better gear and (debatably) harder content. Blizzard also introduced a boss (Sartharion) that had variable difficulty depending upon how many drakes you left up, rewarding you more for doing the harder versions of the fight. This proved an incredibly popular concept and, thus, the next raid included a slew of bosses that could have their difficulty increased in a similar matter. By the last raid, every boss had a 'heroic' mode on offer and essentially doubled the amount of content available to players. It also ended a problem that blizzard had significant issues balancing for some time: How to make something everyone could see and do while still offering a challenge to those who have seen and done everything. <br />
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Not everything was coming up roses though - while initial raids were EXTREMELY easy and had record numbers of people participating in them, later tiers were more appropriately tuned and many were incapable of playing at that level. These people were left in a strange state of 'limbo' for a good portion of WotLK, as almost no single or small group content was added to the game during this time, and normal/heroic dungeons were so quick and effortless with the new Dungeon Finder system that many people were left with nothing to do. By the end of the expansion, new daily quests were added and even 4 brand new 5-man dungeons, but in 'internet time' this felt like eons. Add in problems balancing healer and tank classes (especially the new Death Knight), burst PvP woes, issues with gear scaling and the painfully short 5-boss raid 'Tier 9', and WotLK can be remembered for about as many ups as it had downs. Perhaps the worst part of WotLK was the fact that it's final 'tier' raid was released 1 day shy of a whole year before the next expansion, meaning that aside from a single extra boss you were facing the same 13 bosses for 12 months straight. Not exactly the best way to keep players hooked, and certainly not a way to drum up much excitement.<br />
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But that's ok, because the announcement (and plethora of changes later) of <b>Cataclysm</b> gave many a fan hope where once only a cold, undead shell remained (see what I did there?). Blizzard promised (and delivered) huge systems changes designed to solve a fair number of problems that really stuck out during the WotLK days. Things like significantly larger health pools (to cut down on 2-shot scenarios in PvP and PvE), stat re-balancing (to fix problems with heroic gear scaling seen in ICC), a significant overhaul to the healing playstyles (to reduce the 'wack-a-mole', single-spam feel), as well as a MASSIVE change to nearly all level 1-60 content.<br />
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In 'The Shattering', the entirety of Azeroth as we knew it was forever changed and Blizzard took this opportunity to go back and try to clean up nearly all of the 'old world' Vanilla content that had grown stagnant compared to more recent content. Nearly everything was changed. Thousands of quests were added, changed, or updated to provide a better play experience. Quest flow was substantially improved to prevent having to constantly fly across huge continents to find level appropriate content. Many zones had updated looks to provide a more interesting visual experience (leaving many names like 'Barrens' or 'Desolace' being much less appropriate titles). Political control ebbed and flowed across continents to provide new points of contention and make old battles feel like that had some amount of impact. Talents and skills were rearranged to give classes 'core' abilities earlier on while still adding complexity and unique abilities at later levels. To many players of 'Vanilla WoW', the game seemed almost entirely different and often times worth another playthrough; to new players, content was updated to be far more modern and to take into account many of the features and design choices created out of nearly 6 years of evolution.<br />
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<b>Cataclysm </b>is interesting to me in that despite the fact that Blizzard has dominated the market for over 7 years now, they are still making tweaks, iterations and overhauls to their own game design. Watching how people reacted to the difficulty level of heroics raids and taking that to heart in the Firelands patch and again in Dragon Soul, the HUGE daily quest hub zone in the Molten Front, the addition of Transmogrification (the ability to visually wear one piece of gear while getting the stats from another) and LFR (Looking-For-Raid, an easier difficulty, dungeon-queue style raid), revamping the Darkmoon Faire, and even more subtle differences like the Vengeance changes all prove that Blizzard is not one to rest on it's laurels.<br />
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And rest, it is not! Deathwing may have fallen already, but new adventures await Azerothian heroes (and heroines) in <b>Mists of Pandaria</b>, and while the details are obviously anything but finalized, the current plans certainly seem to indicate Blizzard is once again trying to shake things up. Sure, you'll get a new level cap, spells and raids, but there's also a new class (monk), a new 'neutral' race (Pandaren), a dungeon challenge mode, small group 'skirmishes', and a pet battling system. On top of all of this, they say they have learned a great deal from how they did questing/zones/dailies in <b>Cataclsym </b>and will be working on fitting these lessons (such as not allowing flying until max level or relying less on world phasing) into the new zones to improve the overall player experience with them. <br />
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So there you have it. My thoughts on the past 7 years of life on Azeroth. If nothing else, Blizzard has taught us that trying to make something for everyone ('casuals' and 'hardcore' alike), coupled with a very iterative design process and a constant strive for perfection, can create a game that can be enjoyed by millions for over half a decade. With the MMO space having grown, well, massively in the past 7 years and many companies looking to try and muscle in on Blizzard's turf (RIFT, SW:TOR, GW2, etc) or going Free To Play and being handsomely rewarded for it (LOTRO), it will be interesting to see how these outside forces affect Blizzard's decisions for how to continue to move <b>World of Warcraft</b> forward. And let's not forget that they are still working on their brand new MMO, <b>Titan</b>, which will obviously release soon (tm) and promises to flip the genre on it's head again. Though if you think about it, doesn't that mean it will just be back to being right side up...?Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10849198565080158294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813246974673941322.post-77073308041474297982012-01-26T03:53:00.000-06:002012-01-26T03:53:25.738-06:00Portable Game Triple PackIn the past few months, I've completed three games for portable systems: <b>Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions </b>(PSP), <b>The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks </b>(DS), and <b>Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth</b> (DS).<br />
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Since they're portable titles or ports of well-beloved console versions, I found it difficult to write at length about any of these. So here's some quick takes about each.<br />
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<b>Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions </b>(PSP)<br />
Tactical RPGs are probably my favorite genre of game for portables. Why? They're deep, but they're also turn-based, which means means it's possible to just sit the game down at some point, even during the middle of a battle, and pick it up later. So to this point, I've played several <b>Fire Emblem</b> games for GBA, that <b>Advance Wars</b> game for the DS (<a href="http://gatechsavvy.blogspot.com/2008/05/what-is-it-good-for.html">Days of Ruin</a> or some such), and of course the <b><a href="http://gatechsavvy.blogspot.com/2009/07/you-be-judge.html">Final Fantasy Tactics Advance</a> </b>series. Jonesing for some good tactical RPG goodness, I picked up a PSP and a copy of the original Tactics.<br />
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Part of the reason I got the PSP version in the first place is because of one very big problem I had with the original. Square's original efforts for the PlayStation, such as Tactics and, of course, some game called <b>Final Fantasy VII</b>, became instant classics. But in their rush to get the games to the North American market these games got very shoddy translations. (My favorite: "off course!" instead of "of course!" in the battle arena in the Gold Saucer, which was probably just a typo, but still.) As bad as FF7's translation was, FFT's was that much worse. Tactics features a wide cast of characters in a plot full of history and political intrigue, including people very literally getting stabbed in the back. In addition, the gameplay itself is complicated. I tried to get past all this, but without a good idea of what was going on I quickly lost interest. <br />
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So what I'm driving at is that the PSP version features an <i>excellent </i>localization. The only other major features of the port are a multiplayer mode (which I never tried) and very occasional animated movies for key moments in the plot. (The animations are <i>great</i>, but they are few and far between.) The graphics and gameplay are pretty much the same, except now it's possible to actually understand what the tutorials say. <br />
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As I said, the gameplay is pretty much unchanged. Which is great if you played the original (though, since the class names also changed with the translation, there might be a slight learning curve), but can be harder for newcomers. Many gameplay evolutions have occurred in the past 15 years for tactical RPGs, and while some may interpret this as today's games being easier, I'd say in many cases they've just had enough time to get things right. The most annoying issue I found is that I couldn't evaluate the odds and damage for attacks capable of hitting multiple targets, which made spellcasting difficult. The only other problem I had with the port also had to do with spells: the spell animations caused the software to read the UMD <i>every time</i>, which made them much slower than they were in the original version. (Apparently this game was released long enough ago that "installing" hadn't really been thought up yet for PSP games, as I had this option in the more recent <b>Tactics Ogre</b> port that I just started playing.)<br />
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These days, I probably wouldn't recommend this game as an introduction to the genre. However, it remains a classic. If you're a fan of the original, you'll probably want to pick this up just for the new translation alone. I'd also recommend it for anyone who likes tactical RPGs but hasn't played this game yet, especially if you liked the Tactics Advance games but want something with a little more depth. (Well, okay, <i>a lot more</i> depth.)<br />
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<b>The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks </b>(DS)<br />
Spirit Tracks is the second Zelda game for the DS, following the lead of <b>Phantom Hourlgass</b>. Controls are mostly unchanged from the previous game, where the stylus is used to move Link around the screen, select/talk to NPCs, use items, etc. It was innovative the first time around, but now it's expected. The game can be said for the rest of the game. It's a direct sequel to PH (and, therefore, <b>Wind Waker</b>), except instead of ships, this time around the game has trains. Yes, that's right, <i>trains</i>. You can collect treasures to sell and use to upgrade your train's health, as various baddies will occasionally attack you as you traverse the world map. This game is fun and I would generally recommend it, but it's not going to blow your mind or anything. (Fortunately, Skyward Sword is shaping up to be <i>very good</i>, and I hope to finish it and write about it soon.)<br />
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<b>Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth</b> (DS)<br />
The Ace Attorney games have been covered pretty extensively here, between the <a href="http://gatechsavvy.blogspot.com/2008/04/of-court-cases-and-magical-appendages.html">original series</a> and <b><a href="http://gatechsavvy.blogspot.com/2009/03/for-great-justice.html">Apollo Justice</a></b>. Timeline-wise, this game takes place shortly after the events of <b>Trials and Tribulations</b> but several years before the core of Apollo Justice. This game is pretty much made for people who are fans of the original series. Several characters make cameos and references abound. You certainly <i>could</i> play this game standalone, however. As it says in the title, this game is just "investigations". While the game still features the originals' trademark cross-examination bits, the focus is on investigating crime scenes deducing exactly what happened. Nonetheless, I still missed having parts in the courtroom (as it provided a change of scenery), and for the most part the investigations aren't nearly as free roaming (as you cannot, most of the time, move between areas at will). In addition, the game doesn't feel deep enough, from a certain perspective. In the Ace Attorney games, you're fighting the prosecution and the witness, in many ways, whereas in this game that extra "side" is missing.<br />
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The biggest problem I had with this game, though, were the puzzles. There were certainly times I would be frustrated in the other games, but in this game I really felt like I had to solve things much more on the game's terms, not to mention the number of times I was a step ahead of the game (for instance, in order to present a piece of evidence I would often have to introduce another piece of evidence <i>first</i>, even though I had already made the connection between the two).<br />
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Basically, I would only recommend this game if you're fan of the Ace Attorney series. If you aren't yet, hunt down a copy of the original Phoenix Wright game (or download it on the Wii), and perhaps eventually you'll fit in the category of people who I'd recommend this to. Also worth noting is that a sequel to this game does exist in Japan, but Capcom currently has no plans to release it in the US. Would I buy that game if it made it over here? Probably.asimpersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15662230873832312065noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813246974673941322.post-2399679520124796292011-07-07T01:49:00.000-05:002011-07-07T01:49:46.925-05:00Texas' Twisted Pixel Two-StepTwisted Pixel is a small team development studio with big ideas, and each game they make gets more epic and more impressive. With <b>Ms. 'Splosion Man</b> and <b>The Gunstringer</b> right around the corner, I felt I should take the time to spotlight one of Austin's better known "Independent" game studios with a review of two of their bigger projects: <b>'Splosion Man</b> and <b>Comic Jumper.</b><br />
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<b>'Splosion Man</b> skirts a very thin line between playing it safe with known gameplay and mixing it up with a bit of experimentation, to (mostly) great success. At its heart, the game is nothing more than a simple 2.5D platformer in the same vein as <b>New Super Mario Brothers</b>, but don't start hunting for those fancy platforming moves just yet. Mario might be able to spit fire, pound the ground, spin and float to help him reach the end of the level, but in <b>'Splosion Man</b> you only get one thing: exploding. The game even goes so far as to make a gag achievement to get you to try and change the controls, only to find that all 4 buttons are mapped to 'SPLODE'. There are a few things you can interact with or pick up along the way that involve not exploding, but the majority of the game is pure platforming. There are a few basic rules to follow:<br />
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1) You can only get 3 consecutive jumps in a row, after which you must wait for your power to recharge. This can be avoided by moving across streams of fire to automatically recharge you back to a full 3 jumps (they use this to give you the ability to do long, continuous jump sequences late game while still providing areas that require precision jumping and timing).<br />
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2) This 'jump' mechanism is also tied to your health. Taking damage with no jumps remaining will kill you, while taking damage with jumps remaining may not, depending on the enemy. Falling into pits/spikes/electricity/etc will still insta-gib you.<br />
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3) Making other stuff explode (barrels, other players, some background devices) can give you a small increase in your jump distance.<br />
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Using these basic rules, the team at Twisted Pixel is able to offer an extremely impressive variety of gameplay options to challenge you throughout the course of the game. Add in the bit of extras, like the cakes you can find for exploring or getting to hard-to-reach areas of the level, and the amount of content available for the dollar is extremely impressive.<br />
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Now don't think that because there isn't much else to do than jump means the game is easy: far from it. <b>'Splosion Man</b> has an extremely satisfying difficulty curve that helps you learn new techniques and enemies before being completely overwhelmed by them. Overall the content is challenging and it feels good to beat a level, but some levels do feel a little annoying/cheap in that the only way you can learn to time certain jumps is by first trying and then dying. Most of the more difficult platform sequences do a pretty good job of letting you see in advance what you are up against and plan your timing, but a select few feel that the best way to ramp up difficulty is just to send you full speed towards the side of the screen and hope you either knew what was their already or have split-second trigger fingers. These bits can be frustrating but are few, far and inbetween so if you just power through it you'll be back to great level design in no time.<br />
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'Co-op' platforming is an interesting feature and when I first heard about it I thought it would either be awkward or lame. I mean, a platforming game designed for single player but allowing multiple people? This promises nothing but chaos! (Which games like <b>New Super Mario Brothers Wii</b> also later proved). Twisted Pixel seemed to think the same way, though, because they designed co-operative levels to be 100% unique to co-op which let them put in platforming 'puzzles' that required 2 people. This requires a very strong level of co-operation between players to finish levels and adds and even greater sense of pride and accomplishment when you pull off some ridiculous feats with your quick timing...<br />
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Or, it would, anyway, if it wasn't so bogged down with issues. The idea was great and is amazing fun for the first dozen or so levels, but as they ramp up in difficulty the timing required to pull off different tricks becomes almost impossible to pull off correctly. This makes long sequences of timed jumps nearly impossible to pull off and infinitely more frustrating to play, because now you feel like you are fighting against the game, not playing it. And that's just <i>local </i>multiplayer! The game launched with Xbox LIVE multiplayer which sounds great, but it was plagued with terrible latency and HUGE synchronization issues from the start that could completely ruin your chances of finishing a level halfway through it. To be fair, they worked on it and it got better over time after a few patches but to this day I'd still only try to play local, if at all, because of the absolutely precise timing required to finish some of the levels properly.<br />
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What I also don't understand is why they even allowed it to be 3-4 players "co-operative" to begin with. There are no specific levels for this number of players, and exploding near anyone can cause them to just fly off in the wrong direction and die. This makes 3 players pointless because someone will always be missing a partner and die, and 4 players just absurd because it's just 2 pairs of 2 players trying to make it through timed levels without somehow killing each other (hint: you still do). 2 player mode is challenging enough, but 3-4 player co-op seems to serve almost no purpose other than to be there and be absolute mayhem. Come to think of it, maybe that IS the purpose...<br />
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The inclusion of leaderboards was a somewhat interesting idea to give the game a bit of replay value - see how fast some people were smoking you on levels that took you several minutes! - but after a few weeks/months the game was so overrun with exploits and hackers that almost all of the best times were simply impossible '2 seconds' times that you know could not actually be real. It's fun for a while to check out some of your friends' times and see if you can beat them, but as is often the case in asynchronous competitive events like this, it doesn't really hold you for too long before it becomes boring, especially since it's not something most of your friends will be constantly watching and trying to beat.<br />
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The single player game itself oozes with humor and charm that adds a flair of style to game that really helps set it apart from other solid platformers. Wrap all of this up in a VERY reasonable price, and 'Splosion Man has what it takes to stand out as one of the best games to date on Xbox Live Arcade. <br />
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<b>Comic Jumper</b>, on the other hand, is an entirely different experience. Part side-scroller, part beat-em-up, part twin-stick-shooter, <b>Comic Jumper</b> is an attempt to mix a good number of known genres together to make something unique and interesting. While it can certainly be described as unique, some of the gameplay elements don't work out as well as they could and the whole thing ends up feeling like a great idea bogged down by some awkward execution. <br />
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<b>Comic Jumper</b>'s strongest asset is its story and its characters. Twisted Pixel once again does an amazing job taking a unique idea and combining it with an intriguing story and filling it with zany, larger-than-life characters full of... well, <i>character</i>. The duo of 'The Captain' and 'Star' make for an excellent comedic pairing, especially since they have such a symbiotic relationship with one another. This means they can be placed into situations that might seem implausible for two true individuals to actually participate in.<br />
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Their sparring also helps make other characters have even more to play off of, and to great effect. One of the best 'enemies' is the Captains "arch-nemesis" Brad. Star is overly infatuated with him (much to the Captain's chagrin), so once the three in the same room the laughs just keep rolling in. Other enemies - like the Puttmaster or Mistress Ropes - are just as hilarious and memorable. A few of them (like Nanoc and the Cutie Cutie Kid Cupids) are still funny even if they don't stand up as well to the others.<br />
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The worlds themselves are also varied and well designed. Each 'comic' is unique and gives the feeling of a specific genre/time period of comics, and even the protagonist gets a new look for each set change. It means that even at the end of the game, you are getting to see something new and different that you haven't seen before - something that can't be said for most games today. When you don't have copy/paste/recolor to fall back on, variety is sort of forced upon you. This doesn't mean that you won't see the same monsters reappear from time to time (because you will), but over the course of the game you will definitely see a wide range of unique models and even art styles.<br />
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The over-arching story is adequate, though a bit awkward at times. The amount of direct reference to themselves in the game is occasionally funny but sometimes borders on feeling a bit too egotistical. It sets up some good jokes and some really laugh out loud moments (like the hilarious 'animation' behind the 'help me!' ability) but mostly just feels overdone or overused. The live action sequences are well shot (and thankfully high-definition friendly) and do help add that 'someone is reading a comic book' feeling. And despite my earlier warning of overusing themselves, the final shot of Twisted Pixel at the end is (dare I say it?) priceless!<br />
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I would be a little remiss for not at least mentioning the music - <b>'Splosion Man</b> may have had the 'donuts' song go viral, but it can barely compare to the pure awesome that is "Brad's Theme", or the unfortunately catchy 'I love u'. They get most of their power from actually experiencing them in-game, so don't expect to be blown away if you just decide to look it up on youtube, but many of the original songs in the game are truly exceptional and only add to the experience. <br />
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The gameplay is good, with a high difficulty curve and a scoring system to keep perfectionists coming back for more, but often suffers from the sudden shifts in genre and a not-quite-there control scheme. Sometimes the genre shifts work well, keeping the game fresh and adding a nice change of pace to prevent the gameplay from becoming stale. Unfortunately, some transitions occur too suddenly and are quite jarring, throwing you off and often times getting you killed. It doesn't help that the controls feel a bit overwhelming at times. During twin-stick-shooter portions, you are expected to be in control of both analog sticks, fire with triggers, jump AND slide. I don't know about you, but with thumbs on analog sticks and both index fingers planted firmly on the triggers, attempting to jump while maintaining control of my current position, current target and current rate of fire can be daunting. Then again, maybe I'm just old now >-<<br />
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The game itself is fairly long, propped up a bit by the necessity to replay harder parts over and over again when you die. You can also go back and replay small sections of older missions to try and get 'best scores' or 'longest streak' for cash to buy upgrades, or even special bonus content. Which is actually fairly extensive, now that I think about it. The amount of concept art, music, video interviews and other 'behind-the-scenes' goodies rivals (and actually exceeds in some cases) what many companies offer for money in "collector's edition" boxes. All for free, and all for just playing the game! Certainly a nice touch, and it really goes to prove that this was definitely the game Twisted Pixel founders <i>dreamed </i>of making when they started the company.<br />
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In the end, <b>Comic Jumper</b> is a collection of several ideas put together that both succeeds and stumbles in equal parts. It may not win many awards for anything other than originality, but the game is by no means bad. My only true 'complaint' here is that the gameplay sometimes doesn't hold up to the otherwise incredible production values, and even this is rare. The game may not be for 'everyone', but for someone looking for challenging gameplay in a funny, unique world with over-the-top characters with tons and tons of unlockables, all at an extremely reasonable pricepoint (and soon to be even lower!) you would be hard pressed to find anything better than <b>Comic Jumper</b>. The real shame here is that there will be no DLC to continue the Captain's wild adventures with.<br />
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So there you have it - two reviews for games from Austin's very own Twisted Pixel. They've come a long way from their humble beginnings with "The Maw" and have delivered two original IPs that stand out with their style and humor and keep you entertained for hours on end. Twisted Pixel is most assuredly a shining example of the incredible things being done on the Xbox Live Arcade every year, by small developers with big ideas. And with <b>Ms. 'Splosion Man</b> coming soon, and the western puppeteering <b>Gunstringer</b> on the way for Kinect, there is definitely more to come.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10849198565080158294noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813246974673941322.post-41108445353778604072010-11-10T18:00:00.003-06:002010-11-11T11:25:58.890-06:00Go and grab your riot gearWhat, you never played <a href="http://gatechsavvy.blogspot.com/2008/02/ctl-c-ctl-v.html">Crackdown</a>? I'm not entirely surprised. Maybe you just wanted in on the <b>Halo</b> beta and didn't even notice it came with <i>a whole game</i>. Maybe you didn't even care for that. If you didn't liked the first, I'm not entirely convinced the second would really impress you. If you did play the first, I'm pretty sure you'll only end up disappointed. <b>Crackdown 2</b> isn't exceptionally bad in any specific area, but it doesn't really feel like it moves the game forward in any significant way (except actual co-op support) and instead moves backwards. I was able to get through a whole playthrough and did get several dozen hours of playtime out of it, but by the end it leaves you with that bland taste of mediocrity instead of desperately wanting more.<br />
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The first <b>Crackdown</b> was good for a number of reasons, most of which was the interesting venture into new and mostly uncharted territories. Very few games allowed you the same sandbox-y freedom combined with a 'rpg lite' leveling system, over-the-top action and plenty of side diversions to keep you interested. <b>GTA</b> is comparable with the sandbox, but too bogged down in realism and story to just let you loose on the world. <b>Saint's Row</b> gets close, but has a poorly implemented sense of progression and many side events have no perceivable benefit aside from cash and killing time (or just being humorous). Both of the previous examples spend alot of focus and gameplay around the vehicle and driving/chases in general, and tend to focus less on gunplay and 'combat'. <b>Crackdown</b> attempted to take the best parts of these two (and others) and, despite some flaws, was a refreshing change of pace. Now that it has a sequel, though, the newness is gone and the flaws become more obvious.<br />
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<b>Crackdown 2</b> is a disappointment in many ways, but almost all of them could have been avoided by significantly improving the story and the achievements. As an actual sandbox, <b>Crackdown 2</b> is a pretty significant step forward over its predecessor, but this time around there is significantly less structure to the game. This is probably fun to many of those who just like to go around and do whatever, but in the age of achievements there is very little desire to do something 'just to do it'. The first game had achievements like 'Global Impact', 'Repo Man', 'Confiscator' and 'Shot-putter' to give you plenty of stuff to do on the side that is not already explicitly spelled out for you. Achievements like 'Pysch out' also reward you for beating things on higher difficulties, even if it is limited to just the time trials. <b>Crackdown 2</b> has a few of these to play around with - 'Pebble Dash' and 'Yippee-Kai-Yay' are pretty fun - but is otherwise just a list of things already explicitly spelled out for you in game. The DLC gets a little better at offering up interesting challenges not explicitly tied to gameplay goals, but I really shouldn't have to wait for DLC to make a game fun or interesting. (Admittedly, 'Pysch out' is technically from DLC, but it's free DLC, so that's something.)<br />
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Perhaps the worst part, though, is the complete lack of requirements on difficulty settings. There is no reason to play Crackdown on anything but the easiest setting except for personal satisfaction. Given how hard it is to do many of the side items on higher difficulties (try looking for agility orbs with 5 turrets all trying to turn your face into swiss cheese), so the only thing playing on higher settings does is frustrate you more. I would have liked an achievement like 'Pysch out', or maybe some specific goals that required being on higher difficulties, to give the game a bit more of a challenge and replay value. I'm not one to promote forcing a player to go through a game 2-3 times to get all achievements, but I do like to see companies reward players for challenging themselves and trying their hand at harder difficulties.<br />
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Speaking of difficulty, the game almost becomes a joke when you stumble upon the homing rocket launcher. I like the weapon, don't get me wrong, but I sometimes wonder if we would be better served by having just a 'normal' rocket launcher and more varied combat and AI, than being given a homing rocket launcher and just jump-nuking everything within 5 feet. The newer weapons like UV Shotgun and old favorites like the Harpoon gun are fun to use but almost completely outshined from a usability standpoint by an explosive weapon that does decent-to-good damage that does almost all the work for you. Where's the fun in that?<br />
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The achievements probably could have been forgiven if the actual story mode had more meat to it (and I use the term 'story' very, very loosely). If you thought the plot points in the first Crackdown was lackluster, this time around they will seem almost non-existent. And I'm not even talking literal story here (on which both games are boring, bland throw-aways). What I'm more interested in is the integration with gameplay, to give your some kind of objective to reach towards. Instead of being interesting and entertaining, the game isntead opts for a 'do the same thing over and over again' approach, with predictable results. The 'story' goes like this<br />
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1) Go to Absorption Unit, stand on a spot<br />
2) Repeat #1 two more times<br />
3) Go to Freak Lair, defend light bomb thing<br />
4) Repeat #1-3 ten more times, or until you die of boredom, whichever comes first<br />
5) Fight the hardly-challenging final mission and be underwhelmed by a terrible ending<br />
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Really. That's it. Sure, there's tons of other things to do to disctact you (tactical locations, orbs, races, logs, etc) but in terms of progressing the 'story' that's all you get. It is not engaging or interesting in the slightest and gives you no real reason to want to come back to play... so why would you? The game is fun, especially for those of us who haven't played Crackdown in some time, but quickly loses focus and momentum. There are many who can take a large sandbox and channel their imagination and creativity into a lifetime of fun, interesting gameplay. For the rest of us, though, the game just feels extremely repetitive.<br />
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That's not to say there are not significant improvements at work here. The inclusion of an actual co-op mode is very nice, and probably one of the only reasons I actually played the game for as long as I did. Teaming up with 1-3 other friends to tackle the freaks (and each other) is much more fun than the co-op 'missions' from the first game. There are even a few achievements specific to co-op for you to work on as an added bonus. Co-op does make the game significantly easier (and, therefore, take less time), but I'd rather have more fun in less time than less fun in more time any day.<br />
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For all my fellow OCDers, finding all those collectibles is significantly easier now. You can 'ping' your minimap and it will show you any uncollected orbs nearby your current location, as well as check on your map for all the orbs you have currently collected. There are also a ton of new orbs to find - online orbs, renegade orbs, audio logs and wing suit stunt rings add to the checklist of things you will need to hunting through Pacific City to find to max out your achievement score. The main story may be skin and bones, but they definitely went the extra mile in trying to pack more things to do (and more rewards for doing so) into the world. There are some cool new perks for reaching your maximum skill levels, like unlocking a tank or getting access to a hanglider of sorts called a wingsuit. While the wingsuit takes some getting used to (the control mechanism is not exactly intuitive, and the explanation of how to use it is more confusing than helpful) it can really help you get from place to place easier and unlocks new areas and ways to get around that feels more interesting than just giving you 'jump level 6'.<br />
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Some of the new weapons and vehicles are interesting additions as well, the magnetic grenade being the best of the bunch. You can use these to 'stick' one object to another, either for a very useful affect (like sticking a helicopter to the ground or a vehicle to the wall) or just for hilarity's sake (perhaps creating a 'spider web' of cars floating in the middle of the street). In terms of playing around and having it's very nice to have around, but functionally in the actual 'game' it has almost no purpose because almost nothing challenges you enough to require interesting or unique tactics beyond 'walk in and rocket stuff in the face'. The sticky, jumping SUV is also a nice bonus and makes for some very cool stunt ring challenges, but controlling vehicles is still a bit stiff and so the races and renegade orbs that "require" a Kangaroo SUV are more of an exercise in frustration than fun.<br />
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Overall, <b>Crackdown 2</b> suffers from being stale and playing it safe instead of really trying to branch out and make a niche for itself. The world is nearly the exact same from the first one (but now destroyed), the story is almost non-existent, hardly any of the achievements are interesting and despite being 'open world' there is a lack of variety in gameplay. Despite this, I still had a good amount of fun playing this with a friend to completion. This makes it such a hard call: on one hand, the game offers up almost nothing to warrant a purchase except for 4 player co-op and a few new gadgets and gimmicks, while on the other, you can wring a good dozen or so fun hours out of it with co-op play. I can't outright recommend the game unless you find it sifting through some kind of bargain bin, but if you've got a few friends who really liked the first game, this may be worth looking into.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10849198565080158294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813246974673941322.post-13573577557293474532010-10-03T11:52:00.000-05:002010-10-03T11:52:53.855-05:00The World's Worst Space Mining Simulator(Alternate title after patch: <b>Mass of Text 2: Revenge of the Paragraph</b>)<br />
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</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Guess I have a lot of ground to cover if I want to meet my goal for this year (which was a very easily achievable 12 reviews), but whining about it will only take away from actually <i>doing </i>a review. On top of that, I can't let '<i>New Game +' </i>newcomer Nick be the only person on my blog to have reviewed one of the best games of 2010; that would be just plain wrong of me, and do an incredible disservice to Bioware's latest creation. (Yes, I know that by the time of this writing the Dragon Age: Origins 'expansion' is already out. Thanks for reminding me how late I am with this...). Let's get this party started then, shall we?</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Let's get the bad out of the way (don't worry, there's not much). Possibly the most different - and most aggravating, to many <i>Mass Effect </i>fans - is the change over to a more 'modern fps' style game. This means 2 things: ammo management and regenerating health. The first is mostly just a minor inconvenience, put in place most likely to prevent players from simply using one really powerful weapon and instead forcing them to use their entire available arsenal. While I like this idea in theory, as you definitely could do 80%+ of the first <i>Mass Effect </i>using the same weapon, the implementation just makes <i>Mass Effect 2 </i>feel slow and puts you into very, very tight spots when ammo becomes scarce. This is especially true of powerful, specialized guns (like the sniper rifle) which for some classes can only hold a handful of ammo at one time. This actually can cause the same problem they are attempting to solve - using a single weapon type most of the game - because you feel like you need to save that powerful weapon for a big fight that never happens (or does, then you run out of ammo and have to go back). I would much prefer that the weapons be given different, obvious strengths to encourage the player to use them in appropriate scenarios than attempts to force the player's hand in using different weapons due to scarcity of ammunition. It also goes against the 'lore' of the first game (though they attempt to explain this away as a tech 'improvement' in an attempt to actually include the change in the story of the world), which many find to be a bit lame. This is not a deal breaker by any means - it is inconvenient at best, and unnecessarily debilitating in only a select number of places - but is most certianly an unwelcome change from the first game. At least they were kind enough to have 'ammo' apply to most weapon types ('heavy weapons' excluded), which makes the system a bit easier to use across multiple classes.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Perhaps the more insulting change, however, is the move of the dreaded 'regenerating health'. The first <i>Mass Effect </i>was one of the few remaining shooters to stay with a static health pool - one that would only increase with use of a medi-gel, which were not exactly rare but also not pointlessly plentiful. Regenerating systems tend to encourage poor use of strategic cover, boring downtime waiting for your health to return, and significant difficulties with portions of the game where it is difficult to find cover but you desperately need to get your health back. This is perhaps the most jarring change from the first game, and takes some time getting used to for veterans (though veterans of most other first and third person shooters will be able to jump right in), and I believe causes the game to have extremely wild swings in difficulty from a player perspective. On one hand, easy difficulties and easy fights are made easier as you can simply ignore your health and overpower the enemy from a completely open area without fear of losing much health or wasting many resources, as they will just take a few seconds to recover. In higher difficulties and extremely difficult parts of the game, however, relentless enemies will hardly (if ever) give you much time behind cover without flanking which leaves you with no way to recover health whatsoever (medigels are now used for reviving allies and, as such, are made much more rare).</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">An interesting (but poorly executed) change made in <i>Mass Effect 2 </i>was the drastic change made to mining. In the first game, mining was nothing more than a side quest that had little to no reward aside from perhaps some experience and a bit of cash, which in the first game was pointless. In <i>ME2</i>, however, mining is practically a secondary economy that must be found by the player to perform research on upgrades for your ship, weapons, armors and powers. Unfortunately, mining ends up being implemented as a mind-numbingly tedious chore that is almost force upon you due to the incredible power afforded to you by the upgrades it provides. Players must take their ship to remote planets and 'scan' them for minerals (the same process is used for some side missions that involve beacons) and send probes to the surface to retrieve them. This takes time - in the form of moving from planet to planet, as well as meticulously moving up and down the planets surface at a snail's pace - as well as a monetary investment, as neither the probes nor the fuel are free. You can't even carry that many probes until you get a mid-to-late game upgrade for it, which makes the task before you that much more aggravating. It is easily <i>Mass Effect 2's </i>'level grinding' equivalent and acts more as a 'hours completed' buffer than any sort of true gameplay enhancement. Which is unfortunate, because I really liked the idea - especially since it could be a 'reward' for spending the time to visit Bioware's vast and detailed universe - but instead feels more like a punishment. Bioware eventually patched the game to make the scanner quicker, and while this is a greatly appreciated improvement, as a whole the system still feels more like a time sink than anything else.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">As a minor gripe, some of the decisions, especially near the end of the game, have unpredictable or unintended consequences. There is still something of a disconnect between the dialog 'choice' and what your character says or does, and occasionally NPC's reactions to your choices are strange and contrary to your intentions. It is possible this is on purpose - either to drive story or to shake things up again on players who are methodical or trying to play it 'safe' - but it makes it aggravating when you have the power to choose but not the power to determine what that choice will do. The 'choice' feels much less like a choice and much more like player driven RNG when your choices and consequences do not seem to follow a logical path. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">There are also choices with regards to the story elements of the game that can drive players to near insanity. Specific story missions are forced onto the player after certain conditions are met, which are unknown to the player until you've already triggered it. This means that, sometimes, missions are unavoidable and you are unable to do things like upgrade powers, weapons, or your party. It can make story missions exceptionally difficult if you were otherwise unprepared, and this is extremely frustrating as a player as you can do absolutely nothing to anticipate this or to escape it. I understand this makes the story more believable - after all, your enemy is not going to wait for you to be ready to make their move or show you their hand in advance of playing it - but I feel that the restriction to player choice and preparation easily outweighs the players' feeling of urgency. <i>Mass Effect</i>'s story is, for the most part, extremely non-linear, so why force the few linear plot points on the player so abruptly?</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">All the cons aside though, <i>Mass Effect 2 </i>is an otherwise shining example of how to do a sequel 'right'. Improve (or remove) the bad parts, focus on what did work well, and add new features to try and expand upon your proven idea. The story is still uniquely Bioware; that is to say, well delivered, extremely deep and detailed and almost completely driven by player choice. While the first game was equally a choice focused, many of those decisions do not play out until the second, delivering a completely unique story experience catered to your own choices made over 2 years ago (assuming, of course, you brought your character over). And your choices from *this* game have an even stronger affect on the world and characters, making it unlikely (if not impossible) to ever play the same game twice. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Speaking of characters, if you loved NPCs and character development from the first game, the second will absolutely blow you away. The amount of time you can spend talking and learning about your fellow shipmates is impressive, and the loyalty missions do a great job of fleshing out their story and driving that bond between player and the characters, new and old alike. The fact that your squad mates speak up and react to the world around them, as well as any conversation you take place in, makes them feel much more like they are a part of the team instead of just blindly following you until the next time you need to put a bullet into something. Old comrades (those who survived, anyway) all make important cameos if you look hard enough, but not all of them are willing to return to Shepard's side. The new faces are generally a welcome change of pace from the original game and really add to the diversity and character of the new team. New recruits like Mordin (perhaps my favorite addition to the roster) and Thane give the player new playable races to work with, while characters like Archangel and Legion give players genuine surprise in the way the universe has changed since <i>ME1</i>. The 'Cerebus' choices, unfortunately, are somewhat more bland and uninteresting by comparison, although Zaeed and Jack help to give humans their fair share of 'interesting character' representation (Zaeed's recollections of past wars are especially fun to listen to, though he otherwise lacks serious dialog).</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Perhaps the best new character - both through mastery of writing as well as voice acting - is the enigmatic 'Illusive Man'. He's one of the best characters I've seen in some time, and reminds you of just how convincingly good voice actors can get at really selling the character as an actual person. The Illusive man is that perfect blend of 'good' and 'bad', mysterious yet obvious, smooth and calculating. It is difficult for the player to tell if he is really friend or foe, and many times I felt like I could trust him even though I was a Paragon (and, theoretically, against Cerberus). Martin Sheen gives him the perfect voice, lending a sense of credibility to a man who is otherwise a cold businessman at heart, helping to leave the player constantly wondering about the true intentions of their 'benefactor'. Making him the central player in the second game was absolutely the right call, and I cannot wait to see what happens with him in <i>ME3</i>. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">The overhauled inventory system, despite my gripes at the beginning of the review, is a huge improvement over the first game. The number of available weapons per type is now much more limited, which makes choosing the 'best' one for a job much easier. Ammo power ups were moved to the 'skill wheel', making it much more convenient to switch mid battle, allowing you to actually want to use them to gain an advantage over your enemy instead of being too tedious to deal with. Weapon upgrades are also streamlined into the new 'research' system, applying to all weapons of that type so you don't have to constantly swap those in and out as well. Unfortunately that means there are significantly fewer choices and options available to the player for weapon customization - I'd definitely like to see more weapon options, and maybe some unique upgrade choices that prevent you from getting other things - but overall such a needed improvement that the game benefits much more from the streamline than it is hurt by it. This is especially true since the first system was so cumbersome and difficult to deal with that most players just ignored it entirely, and never used it to it's full capacity.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Another benefit to tossing the old inventory system? Money now actually means something! In <i>ME1</i>, you easily hit the cash cap without really trying, and even have tons of leftover spending money after purchasing all the big weapons and upgrades. This is not really very interesting to the player, who can get anything he want and can just 'outgear' much of the early-to-mid game by simply purchasing as much as is available to you. In contrast, money is much more controlled in <i>ME2 </i>and really causes you to think about your decisions and your upgrades, perhaps causing some frustration to people who want everything *now*, but really just another way to show that player choice does matter. Near the end of the game, with enough side quests and exploration, you can afford most (if not all, with DLC) of the upgrades... but by then, you really, really need them. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Two words on this next improvement: NO MAKO! Need I say more?</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Another noticeable improvement - though not something most people will be interested in - is the available DLC. DLC for the first game was extremely mis-managed. The first pack did not come out until 4 months after release and was generally considered by most to be overpriced, especially considering the lack of new original content. The second suffered for much the same reasons - released 5 months after the first DLC, and viewed by most as overpriced for the 2-3 hours of repetitive gameplay that it provided. <i>ME2</i>, on the otherhand, has included several small, free* DLC packs that included a wide variety of content: new weapons, new missions, and even new playable characters for your roster. These were made available starting from day one, all the way up to 2 months after game release, helping to keep <i>ME2</i> in the news and constantly give players new content to play with. Actual paid content started just shy of 3 months after release, adding in new characters, missions, and plot stories at various prices, most of which are considered 'fair', giving the game at least 1 new DLC per month since release. I have yet to play these, but I'm glad to see this kind of support model being adopted for high profile console games (the 'screw you, used game purchasers' is not appreciated, though). </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Overall, <i>Mass Effect 2 </i>is a well polished, greatly improved addition to the main 'Mass Effect' series that continues to prove that Bioware's attention to detail, characters and story are almost completely unmatched in the industry today. It leaves the player wanting more (the semi-cliffhanger ending makes sure of that), but all good games feel like they end too soon. It really makes me wonder what they can possibly be able to do to make <i>Mass Effect 3</i> feel as impressive, but I suppose if anyone could do it, it would be Bioware. This game comes highly recommended, with the normal stipulation of 'you better like text'.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">*Only 'free' if you bought the game new, or purchased the 'Cerebus Network' download after purchasing the game new</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
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</div>Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10849198565080158294noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813246974673941322.post-43075038622248102352010-05-04T04:06:00.000-05:002010-05-04T04:06:04.727-05:00I'm ASimPerson, and This is My Favorite Mass Effect Review on the CitadelObservant readers of this site have probably noticed another contributor sitting up in the top left for sometime now. That person is, in fact, me. I'm not as verbose as Chris, but I hopefully be only slightly less skilled a reviewer.<br />
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My plan here is to start off with Bioware's blockbuster sequel to, um, its 2007 blockbuster <b>Mass Effect</b>. For reference, here's Chris's <a href="http://gatechsavvy.blogspot.com/2008/05/mass-of-text.html">original Mass Effect review</a>.<br />
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<b>Mass Effect 2</b> (PC)<br />
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If Mass Effect (ME) was Bioware's attempt to get first person shooter gamers into RPGs, then Mass Effect 2 (ME2) goes even further in that direction. Oh, there's still character customization - Shepard can now customize his (sorry female Shepard fans) individual armor pieces according to function and can apply any color he wants. However, almost as though it was a reaction to the terrible customization UI in the first game, the broad range of choices for armor and weapons is now gone. For each kind of weapon Shepard can equip there anywhere from 2-4 choices at the end of the game, and there is no inventory for weapons and armor. I'm not crazy about that, but it does at least mean the death of the "you have too many items" dialog box. All characters (excepting class requirements and the rare character-specific items) can equip any weapon. Class still does play a role here, though, as the weapons characters are proficient with will have more ammo available. <br />
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Yes, I did state that correctly - ME2 brings back ammo management. While the first game's weapons could overheat but had unlimited ammo, ME2 has finite ammo. I'm personally not a fan of this change, as it seems to contradict some of the other changes. In addition, this now means that ammo needs to massaged and managed. While occasionally this calls for strategy (for instance, the "best" weapons for non-soldier characters only have 20-30 shots, so they need to be saved for when it's neccessary) this mostly just means most players will have to waste time looking for SMG clips on the ground, which isn't really a lot of fun.<br />
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The character abilities have also been simplified in ME2. Instead of allocating points to abilities, skills, and <s>force powers</s> biotics, each character has 6 areas to allocate abilities to. Experience and ability points are earned very sparingly - while Shepard still gains levels, experience and points and now earned only after missions. This also means the ability system is simpler. Instead of the Knights of the Old Republic style 3/6/9 points system (where each ability generally levels up after so many points, but you only expend one point at a time) like ME did, ME2 uses a 1-2-3-4 system (where the first level of an ability is 1 point, the second is 2, etc.). At the 4-point level, the ability gives you some stat bonuses and that's that.<br />
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Missions are definitely more discrete in this game than in ME. Each time a mission is completed in ME2, the game tosses up a summary screen with some text and how much money, experience, and ability points were earned. While some folks may welcome this, I found it sort of jarring—especially early in the game where upon completing a mission I was sent back to my ship, while I still had things to do back on the space station I was just on. Nonetheless, that's a pretty minor complaint.<br />
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I will complain about the mining, though. Those who played the first game may remember the infamous mining subquest. Well, at least <i>that one</i> was at least optional. In ME2, minerals are required to build weapon, armor, ship, and character upgrades. The only way to acquire minerals is process which I personally referred to as "strip mining the galaxy". Upon visiting a planet in a solar system, the planet is scanned for minerals, and then automated probes are sent to pick them up. The scanning is, at best, tedious. At least on the PC version (which I played), the mouse is dragged around a globe representation of each planet while a chart tells you the concentration of each mineral in the area over which the scanner currently is. To add insult to injury, the probes used to actually pick up the minerals are not free and must be bought (also, fuel is not unlimited either, but this only applies to travel within local clusters, not solar systems). Given that your ship is actually smarter in this game makes this even worse (i.e., why can't the ship scan the planet?). I suppose the only way this could be worse than it already is if I had to drive the Mako down to the planet and get the minerals, <i>a la</i> the first game. (Good news: no Mako missions in this game!)<br />
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Of course, this would not be a Bioware game without a healthy dose of plot. Being a sequel, it's pretty much a given that this game is darker than its predecessor, but fortunately it trends more toward <i>The Empire Strikes Back</i> end than, say, <a href="http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/12/03/">the second Prince of Persia</a> game. NPCs now swear more, and Shepard's "neutral" dialog options are even a little more, well, angry than the first game. Of course, this is still a <i>Bioware</i> game, so everyone is still pretty much transparently good or evil, including Shepard. ME's "dialog wheel" is back, and again the vast majority of conversations will have three options that progress the conversation: Space Goody-Two-Shoes, Space Switzerland, and Space Nazi. Based on my experience, players will generally end up on one of the two extremes unless they're purposely switching around.<br />
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Choices made in the first game can change the second somewhat significantly - the core plot will still be there, but just about everything around it will be different. (Hint, though: the "default" or "canon" choices from the first game are, fitting in the tone of the second, mostly the renegade options.) Your crew will be a mix of newcomers and old faces, and some other NPCs interactions are also flavored by choices you make in the first game. I think that's about all I can say without getting to plot spoilers, which I'd like to avoid for either game. Basically, your job is to, once again, save the galaxy against statistically long odds. The game makes it abundantly clear there will be a third installment as well, so go ahead and clear out some space on your 2012 day planner.<br />
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I'm late to the Mass Effect party. I only played the original after getting on sale on Steam back in January, figuring I should see what Chris and my brother had been going on about for the past two years. Turns out, they were on to something, and after beating the original I pre-ordered the second game. Since I finished the first game on a couple days before the second came out, this meant I had over a month of uninterrupted Mass Effect goodness. This is basically the gaming equivalent of getting into a TV show during the middle of its run, and then realizing that <i>now</i> you have to wait for the rest of the episodes to come out, just like everyone else. And here I am, waiting with baited breath with the rest of the Internet for the remaining downloadable content packs and the announcement of Mass Effect 3.<br />
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<i>asim's "tl;dr" summary</i>: they "fixed" inventory from the first game by getting rid of inventory management, combat edges closer to the FPS scale, but there's still a rich, deep RPG here that's addictive and fun. It's darker than the first game, but avoids overdoing the "edgy" thing.<br />
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<b>In Memoriam</b><br />
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Last April 14th, the plug was pulled on the authentication for the original Xbox Live servers. Once the king of Live, and quite possibly the reason why Live still even exists, today Halo 2 is all but dead, as those who've managed to keep their Xboxes online since then are the only ones left. I played a lot on the last night and was hit with a wall of gaming nostalgia that I thought was only possible with games from my childhood. In particular, it brought back all those nights in college spent with my roommates from 2005 and 2006 when we'd go on there as a party, continually seek out the shotguns and plasma grenades, and make incessant <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSuvOVH0aSQ">"Juggernaut"</a> references. ("I like your raincoat!", "You can't run!", "Jugs ain't got no power steerin'", etc.) So I guess what I'm trying to say is... thanks for the memories, <a href="http://www.bungie.net/">Bungie</a>.asimpersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15662230873832312065noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813246974673941322.post-23940318688254494362010-05-03T17:58:00.000-05:002010-05-03T17:58:01.701-05:00LOST Odyssey (Polar bears need not apply)There are many things that make a good JRPG: story, characters, the battle system, leveling curve, amount of grinding required, etc, etc. Few - if any - are able to excel at one at the expense of others, although more often than not flaws may be overlooked for a more "sum of it's parts" view. This is the perfect way to describe a game like <i>Lost Odyssey</i>: while often times not perfect, as a whole the game is more than enjoyable and deserving of praise. The usual list of exceptions applies: this is still a turn based game, still requires leveling up, is still a very long and time consuming game, and there are still large chunks of time that are not devoted to killing stuff. But let's be honest; if you go into just about ANY traditional JRPG expecting these things to not be the case, there is something wrong with you. If you are familiar with and enjoy the occasional JRPG, <i>Lost Odyssey</i> will not disappoint, even when it does... disappoint.<br />
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More often than not, the one major feature players claim to be most interested in when playing an RPG is a story. You want a good story to carry you through your progression as a character, something to give you that drive to play just a little bit more or to get just a little bit more powerful so you are ready to face the next challenge. Something that can keep your attention over the 40+ hours of gameplay when all else fails to be exciting. This is a broad net though: we are not just talking the 'overarcing' story, but subplots, characters and character development and backstory. It's not good enough if just one enemy in the story is interesting if it takes 30 hours of being completely bored to get to that point.<br />
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Where <i>Lost Odyssey</i> fails in this regard is that overall plot is extremely simple, but in many ways this works as much in it's favor as it does against it. There is no convoluted "he's a good guy but really a bad guy but really a good guy playing double agent" type story to merely keep you guessing at what is really happening. There is no cliche "hidden" bad man or "higher power" that remains mysterious (or missing) for most of the game only to suddenly be revealed on the last disc. The premise is simple, the setup is clear, and the story plays out almost like you would expect, but on some level we've been taught so often that nothing is as it seems (because it is easier to surprise the player if they just haven't seen the real enemy at all) that you will often times find yourself wondering if perhaps it is too simple to be true. <br />
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This works out well for the game, though, because the real story is not in the standard issue good vs evil struggle that most games focus upon: it is about the characters, their experiences and their "story" they each have to tell. It is here that Lost Odyssey excels where few have before; each character is unique, interesting, has something to say that is communicated effectively to the player. The 'immortals' all have dreams (which are really memories of their past), and each one is in itself a short story that almost always succeeds at stirring up powerful emotions and thoughts. This gives you better insight into who the character is and why he/she acts the way they do, which helps you understand (or empathize) with the choices they must make and the problems they must endure over the course of their adventure. People may fault the game for having a 'simple' story, but really what it is doing is not using a single person as a crutch for storytelling and plot progression and instead trying to emulate complex human thought and emotion into a cohesive, rational story. Does it always succeed? No. Was I impressed countless times and sucked into the world? Of course I was. Even many of the mortals, at first nothing more than story props for the main, immortal characters, eventually become their own unique identity and become characters you feel vested in. It makes those tense, dramatic moments much more powerful when you actually like the "person" it is happening to, instead of just want to get it over with so you can move on to the big bad boss.<br />
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Which is why the characters needed to be so strong in Lost Odyssey, and fortunately many of them are. One or two fall short - some of the NPCs feel a little rushed or underdeveloped and a few obviously exist for nothing more than to help move a plot or quest forward, and a few of the playable ones are weaker (i.e. not as well fleshed out) as the others, but overall the quality is high. The English voice overs - usually terrible and left to rot while I listen in Japanese with subtitles on - were so good that I left them on, and in fact prefer them to the Japanese voices. Having a good voice actor really helps solidify a strong character and gives you something tangible to grasp onto when you think of them, and this really shows off in <i>Lost Odyssey</i>.<br />
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Jansen, for instance, is one of my favorite characters on any RPG I have played. He's a very seedy character at first, generally unlikeable and comes across a little rough around the edges. As you progress through the game and Jansen changes as a character, he becomes more serious and likeable while remaining a fun, 'comic relief' feel. Jansen's voice actor (his English one, anyway) possibly gives him the biggest boost of character, delivering lines with such perfect inflection that the funny stuff gets funnier without making the serious stuff seem unreasonable.<br />
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Kaim is not the best main character by any stretch of the imagination, suffering from the usual 'main character' flaws that we've seen since the explosion of <i>Final Fantasy 7</i> (that is the aloof, depressed emo), but his back story is so well explained that it certainly feels much more believable. He also comes to terms with himself in a much more rational way that other characters do, so it feels more like the character is actually growing than the plot needs him to stop being heartless and start caring about others (I'm looking at you, Squall). Unfortunately, good intentions don't make the early game any more bearable during his "it's so painful" and "woe is me" moments, but maybe making him that drab in the beginning helped make his growth that much more apparent. He comes through in the end, but it takes a few dream sequences to really set him up as an interesting character to the player. His voice actor is perhaps one of the worst in the game - which is not to say it is terrible, it is just not as good as some of the others - and it really makes his character difficult to really get into sometimes.<br />
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The other playable characters fluctuate from 'good' to 'great' for most of the game and bring their own unique experiences to the story. The two children are interesting in that they bring a very innocent, 'child like' perspective on many difficult "grown up" situations. It's also nice to see strong women on the roster that aren't all about the T&A (although Ming doesn't exactly dress for winter) but instead are strong individuals with emotions that run deeper than "I'm madly in love with that hunky main character dude!". Tolten's character, I feel, is far too weak and it is often times very difficult to watch as his struggles with suddenly accepting the heavy load of personal responsibility and challenges he must face. He does eventually embrace his destiny and overcome his own faults, but it is neither fun nor encouraging to watch one of your playable characters act as a pushover for a large portion of the game. Overall the cast of characters does an excellent job playing to each others strengths and it makes group dynamics very interesting. All that being said, they definitely help make an otherwise bland story teem with life and emotion. <br />
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Which, of course, is bolstered by the great graphics and cinematic presentation. While technically speaking the game is a disaster of epic proportions - insanely long and frequent load times, nearly unbearable slowdown during spellcasting, exceptionally bizarre looking hair, and a pretty bad case of the "realistic browns and greys" - overall the game is well presented and, often times, even stunning. Considering the game is nearly 2 years old now and not produced with a budget or experience behind such games like, say, <i>Final Fantasy XIII</i>, it was enough to keep me interested and, on occasion, even impress me. What is most interesting is the size and detail of many of the cities and areas you visit, one of those subtle but nonetheless important details often overlooked in a lower quality game (or a higher quality one with something to hide). It wasn't something to really write home about, sure, but the parts that were good were just as soon forgotten as the framerate slowed to a crawl when trying to cast a spell or you had to load the game (again) because you went through a door. Another one of those "not bad enough to detract but still bad enough to note" type games, I'm afraid.<br />
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Gameplay, on the other hand, is tight and controlled. While combat is 'turn' based, the system includes a number of substantial upgrades to make combat more involving and more rewarding of sound tactical decisions rather than "mash A to win". One such improvement is what I like to call action order, and is similar to how the combat in <i>Blue Dragon</i> worked. Essentially, different actions have different initiative orders and occur before other actions of different types. As an example, using an item almost always occurs first in the turn order, whereas casting powerful spells tend to occur last. In fact, more powerful spells can take several turns to complete, and casters who are interrupted before their spells are cast get 'pushed back' to later turns. What this means that if your melee focuses their attacks on enemy casters, you can delay really powerful spells from going off (or cancel them entirely) by interrupting them with an attack or item before they end their cast. Of course, the enemy can do the same as well, so planning out your order of attack and making sure to bolster up your defenses is incredibly important.<br />
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Speaking of defenses, Lost Odyssey introduces an interesting (but somewhat clunky) concept to the 'Front Row / Back Row' battle order than I've seen in some time (apologies if this is in some other game and I'm just now seeing it). Basically, the characters on your front row represent a 'wall' of defense for those in your back row, so those in the back remain well protected from enemy attacks. As your front line is whittled down, however, their ability to effectively guard the back (called 'guard condition') is severely lessened. As your party's guard condition is decreased, units in the back start to take larger amounts of damage, something your spell casters and ranged characters are not so capable of taking. This adds a bit of defensive strategy to the game and is nice to see implemented in an RPG, even if it only takes a few levels of grinding to have "total offense" still be your best battle option. As long as human time is a factor, "spam damage to win quicker" will be the most preferred method of random-mob execution.<br />
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The ring system is also a welcome addition - actually giving you something to pay attention to in battle instead of watching your character's animation sequence endlessly loop as you press the same button over and over again (though I still like the combo system presented in <i>Legend of Dragoon</i> then best so far). Allowing characters to switch rings in combat to make most effective use of their abilities is nice, but the UI for doing so (coupled with the number of rings eventually available) makes it far too cumbersome to use in something other than the most dire of situations. This is just one of many areas where the idea behind the game is solid, but <i>Lost Odyssey</i>'s menu system is so hopelessly deep that performing even simple tasks requires several minutes worth of fidgeting to accomplish. Add to that complex things like crafting rings, linking skills, assigning skill slots, swapping equipment, moving characters, using spells and checking status and you begin to spend huge chunks of time in the menu system just trying to navigate yourself around a labyrinth of options. It's nice that the game integrates all of these things well into gameplay and that they feel useful and have a set purpose, but without a decent UI system it is almost more frustration than it was worth.<br />
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Another fault of the gameplay system is that it heavily favors the immortal characters towards the end of the game. With a huge array of skill slots available, immortal characters can be fine-tuned for any battle as necessary and quickly become absolute powerhouses in battle. The usual mortal has their own pre-defined list of slots, plus 1-3 accessories available to them (certain characters are allowed to equip more than one) and start to fall significantly behind immortals in martial prowess and utility about midway through the game. The story 'remedies' this by forcing you through many portions where only specific characters are available to you at any given time, which only helps to enforce to idea that mortal characters are significantly weaker than immortals and causes you to feel like you are being forcefully handicapped. Once all characters meet up again, however, there is absolutely no reason to choose mortals over immortals and the unique aspect of having 9 available characters is destroyed when you feel forced to use the 5 most powerful ones available to you at all times. Most of each characters' story has played through by the end, so it is not a major loss, but it is unfortunate that they spend so much time giving each one a unique voice and story only to have them be thrown away on the gameplay side at the end.<br />
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Which is especially terrible considering the huge amount of side questing and 'harder than the last boss' dungeons you will want to do before wrapping up those loose plot lines. Some of them feel very 'grindy' - the Temple of Enlightenment is an especially brutal place and you may find yourself having to cut your teeth for a few hours on the outer monsters before you can hope to even survive one encounter with the inner monsters. And the DLC is even worse, a massive dungeon of 25+ levels with no save points and almost a requirement to farm out the new items in order to have a fair shot at defeating the last boss (even I have yet to beat this after some 90+ hours behind the wheel). Fortunately for most of you reading this, the balance of story and gameplay through the 'main' portion of the game is well apportioned and you will hardly ever feel like you must grind out levels in order to succeed. The one notable exception to this is the first few levels, where you are still learning the system, bosses seem extremely tough and are frustratingly deadly. Past those, you will have enough experience with the system that difficulty will fall back in line. <br />
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Side quests like the 'backyard' are especially fun and challenge you to defeat encounters in specific and unique ways that you absolutely cannot win by just spamming a single button or command. Backyard will require you to use the full gambit of options available to you at all times and really explore the intricacies of the battle system - from effective usage of rings, to properly using specific skills, to even planning out cast times and "guard condition" management. You can play through some of it early on but unfortunately, by the time you get to the really challenging stuff you either already have figured that out for yourself or are kicking yourself for not knowing it most of the game. I really liked it, though, and would love to see more of that kind of challenge in other JRPGs.<br />
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Overall, Lost Odyssey is an superbly high quality game that keep you enthralled and entertained for hours on end, even if it does occasionally fall short of it's lofty goals. In a world of "When is the next <i>Final Fantasy</i>?", it's nice to see a game so similar in style be executed to such perfection, even if it does take the original creator of the series to achieve that. If you have an Xbox 360 and are looking for the perfect JRPG to sink your teeth into this is one I can highly recommend. (As if the thousands of words prior to these didn't already convince you of that...)Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10849198565080158294noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813246974673941322.post-85910957384668569082010-02-15T22:38:00.002-06:002010-02-15T22:39:52.291-06:00What ya gonna play?<span style="color: #38761d;">GHOSTBUSTERS! </span><br />
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Whoops, sorry, got a little carried away th<span style="background-color: white;"></span>ere. But what can I say? When you are talking about the <i>Ghostbusters</i>, you can't help but get excited. From the very first moment a <i>Ghostbusters </i>themed game was announced in 2006, I was curious. Partially because, hey, it's the freaking Ghostbusters, and partially because - who has seen or heard anything about the <i>Ghostbusters</i> in the past decade (or more)? This could definitely be interesting.<br />
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And then it starts: the inevitable development nightmare. Not having licensing rights. Changing developers. Even losing their publisher due to the Acitivision/Blizzard merge. Things were really starting to look bad. But then Atari comes out of nowhere and actually picks up the game to publish (to be published alongside the blu-ray releases) - finally, an end was in sight. But could new developer Terminal Reality overcome the standard "terrible movie tie in" problems, or would be become a quick cash in on a dated franchise? Well that's what we're all here for, right?<br />
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It helps tremendously that the game not only got script help from Aykroyd and Ramis, but voice help from what is essentially the entire cast from the original movies. It really helps to immediately grab you and pull you in when you walk up as "the rookie" only to hear the very familiar voices of Dr. Venkman, Ray, Egon and Winston cracking jokes and blabbering on in techno-jargon like it was 1984 all over again. (Fun fact: I wasn't even alive when the first movie came out)<br />
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The plot is nothing fancy or far-fetched (for a story about paranormal activity, anyway), but it gets the job done. What really makes it great is the comedy and the voice acting - extremely top notch with plenty of laugh out loud moments and great <i>Ghostbuster </i>in jokes and references. Granted I liked the movies so liking the game is only natural considering how much of the original cast is involved, but being the 5th member of the team as they romp around town destroying everything in sight is definitely something to experience.<br />
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There are a few awkward points, though. Terminal Reality (or perhaps Aykroyd and Ramis) try their best to include just about any and every possible reference that they can from the movies; and while many of them work out quite well, a few feel rather forced. The Stay Puft marshmallow man, for instance, is a great icon from the first movie but really feels out of place in the game, especially since the humor of the 'big reveal' from the first movie is completely gone. A giant man made of marshmallow just isn't as funny when you expect him, I guess (and you do, since he displayed so predominately on the box).While the fan service is appreciated, it feels a little lame to have something so fondly remembered from the movies be shoe-horned in just for the sake of it.<br />
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Gameplay wise, the game is decent but honestly nothing to write home about. Wrangling ghosts is fun at first but the method used and control scheme is finicky enough that it often becomes more frustrating than anything else. You will often accidentally cross streams with your rather brain-dead AI teammates, frequently will lose track of ghosts or simply be unable to keep them down in a trap properly, and good luck even trying to think about not doing crazy amounts of collateral damage to whatever room you just stepped into. It's good enough that it gets you by and entertains you between jokes and gags, but on the higher difficulties it just begins to pile on the aggravation in droves. The complete lack of precision, occasionally misread controller inputs and overall lack of well thought out gameplay design do not complement each other well in this game, that is certian.<br />
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Which is probably OK considering the game's length - playing on an easy difficulty with no real interest in exploring, achievements or 'taking in the scenery' and you are sure to be in and out of the game in 8-10 hours. There is plenty to keep you coming back though - harder difficulties, tons of secrets and collectibles and even a multiplayer mode, which unfortunately does not work split screen and only works on Xbox Live (boo!). Achievements will give you more challenges to shoot for, like doing very little damage over a single playthrough or completing tasks in the multiplayer "campaigns". You may not get 100+ hours of entertainment out of it, but it's engaging enough to be worth some investment without being dragged out to the point of wearing out it's welcome. Which is good enough for me - no way I would have had the patience to play through that if it were tied down with an extra 10-15 hours of busywork to try and make it seem like a better 'entertainment investment'. It does exactly what it sets out to do, does it marginally well and rather quickly, and doesn't ask for any more of you than that. I think that's reasonable enough to ask for, don't you?<br />
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I wish I could speak for multiplayer, but as I picked up the game very late and know very few other people who actually still have copies of the game (and still want to play it), I was unable to really give it a fair test. Thems' the breaks when you don't have split screen co-op, people. <br />
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Graphically the game is not going to really blow you away, especially if you've seen any decently created "next gen" games (can we start calling them "current gen" yet?), but I can say that the work done behind the faces and characters really paid off in helping to sell the <i>Ghostbusters </i>feel. Sure, you can tell they aren't real people, but they are convincing enough facsimiles that it almost starts to feel natural to hear them talking by the end of the game. <br />
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As you can see, the game is far more 'mediocre' than most of the big blockbusters out there, but for whatever reason being a <i>Ghostbusters </i>game was enough to really pull me over the edge and have lots of fun with it. I also have every intention of going back and collecting some of the other artifacts and water fountains for achievements, although I'm not sure I can bring myself to play through the entire game again on Professional difficulty. Overall I would suggest it to anyone who may have been a fan of the movies as you will certainly get your monies worth of enjoyment from it (especially at going prices), but if you didn't like them or really only have a passing interest the gameplay probably won't hold itself up alone for more than a few hours at best. And honestly, I wouldn't blame you if you told me you were too busy playing <b>Mass Effect 2</b> or <b>Bioshock 2</b> instead. Because - at least in the case of the former - that's exactly what I'm doing.<br />
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Speaking of - were you here looking for a review of<b> Mass Effect 2</b>? Well good luck, I'm already 30 hours into the game and probably not even half way to finishing, which is nothing compared to the 2 play throughs it would take to really get a good idea of what the game is really like. Until then, why not relive a blast from the past and check out my <a href="http://gatechsavvy.blogspot.com/2008/05/mass-of-text.html">Mass Effect 1</a> review? You should really be playing that if you haven't already. Otherwise, you'll be completely lost. More of a shooter fan? Why not read through my review of the first <a href="http://gatechsavvy.blogspot.com/2009/01/bioshock-actually-shocks-me.html">Bioshock</a>.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10849198565080158294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813246974673941322.post-90705795589988572602010-01-11T10:59:00.000-06:002010-01-11T10:59:19.083-06:00Let's do the time warp againThe Xbox Live Arcade has really come through in the past year or so in terms being able to release quality content at reasonable prices. Great new games like <b>Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords</b>, <b>'Splosion Man</b>, and <b>Penny Arcade Adventures</b> have found a happy home with quality remakes and re-releases like <b>Worms</b>, <b>Banjo-Kazooie</b> and <b>Uno</b>. But one of the best parts of the service is the fact that small games can be made for small budgets and released to a real audience without need for huge marketing pushes and big box co-operation. This allows for a bit more risk, and where there's risk there's innovation, and that can makes things very interesting.<br />
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Leading up to its release, <b>Braid </b>was the XBLA golden child - the definitive proof that people pointed to when they wanted to show that arcade games could be as "big of a deal" as retail games were. To many, it was going to be the proof that downloadable games were the future and could compete directly with retail in terms of sales and revenue for game companies. Considering it was receiving heaps of awards when it was still in its infancy (2 years before being released), that should be no surprise. But even (and perhaps especially) with all the<b> </b>pomp and circumstance,<b> Braid </b>had something to prove in an area that was still largely new in the console space. So after all the hype and fanfare, did Braid make a case for 'triple A' downloadable games or was it simply more chaff? After playing it, I have to say that, in every way, <b>Braid </b>proves that you really can do some impressive things with limited space and budget. And here's how.<br />
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The game begins as what seems like a simple platformer but quickly goes beyond that, using time itself to take platforming to a whole new level. Oh, sure, time manipulation has been tried in games before, but Braid handles it so well it becomes nearly seamless in execution. It's not the familiar that makes it so good, but the unfamiliar that really helps it to stand out. The interesting uses in some of the later levels - including position-dependent time, 'shadows' and time warping - are what really solidify it as an innovative, original game.<br />
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Which is amazing, really, because time manipulation is a very difficult gameplay mechanic to get right. You have to hit the sweet spot between too simple and too complex, balance the completely obvious and the ridiculously obscure, all while trying to maintain enough diversity to keep the game feeling fresh. Even the slightest drift too far in one direction and the house of cards begins to tumble, easily taking the game from 'fun' to 'frustrating'. <b>Braid </b>does all this <i>and more</i>, always evolving and continually challenging the player with new play options and twists. At first it's just a simple jump-stomp platformer, then they mix in a bit of the all-too-familiar "hey you can rewind time" mechanic, but after that it's anybody's guess and everyone's surprise. Most 'puzzles' are fairly obvious and become a simple matter of executing properly (or determining how to execute properly), which keeps players from getting frustrated because the goal is clear and the tools are all explicitly laid before you.<br />
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There is one puzzle in a late level that did throw me for a loop and begin to frustrate because you <i>think </i>you know how to work it but it seems to just require absolutely perfect execution. Instead, a bit of dumb luck and a realization of my own mistakes causes it to become an actual point of pride when I was able to work it out the correct way.<br />
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Perhaps the only true fault of gameplay is that there just isn't enough of it, but like <b>Portal</b>, that is almost a guaranteed statement for a game that you really enjoy and would like to continue playing. It is very easy to say "the game went on too long and became repetitive" and blame the developer for trying to stretch too much gametime out of a single concept, so I find it difficult (if not impossible) to actually blame a game for being "too short". I would rather the game be shorter and very good (see: the <b>Half Life 2</b> Episodes or <b>Portal</b>) than try to forcibly extend the game for fear of it being "too short" (see: backtracking in <b>Halo</b>, excess travel in <b>GTAIV</b>, or level grinding in RPGs). A reviewer knocking the game for being "too short" really translates to (the significantly more positive) "does not overstay its welcome", and is more the sign of a desperate reviewer digging for something negative to say than an actual flaw in an effort to appear unbiased. Either way, it is fair to say that Braid will leave you wanting more.<br />
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...or if not more, at least a book of references, because the story is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Braid's story, while almost completely baffling upon closer inspection, is perhaps one of the best proofs that video games add a completely new dimension to entertainment that, when used properly, takes storytelling to a whole new level. Books are something of an interactive medium, feeding you information but allowing you to use your mind and imagination to fill in the gaps and recreate the scene. Movies are visually impressive and often stunning in execution, but leave very little to the imagination and offer little in terms of stimulation aside from bright lights and big sounds (a few exceptions aside, of course). Video games, however, are designed as an interactive medium and allow the player to feel deeply invested in the story (like books) while maintaining a very impressive visual clarity (like movies). Most games try to really fall back on one of the two sides to carry them to greatness (the classic graphics vs. gameplay argument), but <b>Braid </b>finds a great story to tell with a great gameplay system that mesh together so well it leaves you almost stunned speechless at the end. It is difficult to explain without giving it away, but the last level alone is one of the finest moments in entertainment and requires almost no words or fancy visual effects. <br />
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That's what makes it so sad to say that the 'real' story - depending on who you believe - is so confusingly hidden and ambiguous that is it really takes away from the experience as a whole, assuming you bother to look long enough. <b>Braid </b>is really telling almost 4 different stories at once, sometimes jumping back and forth between them with no real clear indication that it has done so. As you play, it seems like it makes sense (granted, even the most basic of interpretations seems very weird) but as you near the end it just explodes into a tangled mess of plots, subtle metaphors and completely blank holes. Even now, you can search far and wide on the internet for different "interpretations" of the games plot and events (do yourself a favor and do not do this until you've played it at least once) and almost all of them will be different. There is something to said for stories being "open to interpretation", especially with regards to character motivations and thoughts, but when you can't even piece together the basic plot of the story it starts to cross a line.<br />
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Some say this is a reason to put <b>Braid </b>above the rest - that it deserves praise for not dumbing down the story and for being a bit more open to interpretation than, say, "a plumber that fights a dinosaur to save a princess of a kingdom of mushroom men" - but I'm going to have to disagree. It does not detract enough to really punish the game for it, and in fact it does a good job of getting people to continue to talk about the game after the fact, but a story does not have to be cryptically written to be good. <br />
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Graphically, <b>Braid </b>is arguably the perfect blend of stunning art and wonderful artistic direction. There is not a single point about it that leaves you with the impression that it is a simple downloadable game, and it is even more impressive than most AAA titles released that year (in terms of production quality). It really shows off the true power behind HD gaming and makes you wonder what could be done with a full retail title in 2D. The amount of detail in the scenery, incredible use of colors and smooth animations all add up to a beautifully rendered, completely unique look that really captures your attention and refuses to let go. Couple this with the soothing violin playing in the background and you can easily get lost in the splendor of it all. While graphics can't make bad gameplay better, it does act as a very nice bow to wrap up an already strong package. <br />
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Despite all of the praise it received, Braid was still a magnet for criticism, mostly surrounding its length and price. I've covered the whole 'length' argument at length (ba-dum-tsh), but cost is an entirely different issue. I think one of the biggest reasons why cost was even such a big problem for most people is because 1) companies had been burning people on the cost of DLC already (see: Horse Armor in Oblivion), 2) A pattern was starting to emerge that XBLA games were $10 so that is the price people expected, and 3) players tend to directly compare cost with perceived length to determine "value". <b>Braid </b>was bucking that trend, and it brought up bad memories of companies trying to overcharge for downloadable content, which is often cheaper to distribute than going through retail channels. <b>Penny Arcade Adventures</b> ran into the same problem when they released <b>Rain Slick</b> for $20 earlier that year. Couple that with the noticeably short playtime and it really set some people off.<br />
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For some reason, video games are still the only medium where a direct correlation is drawn between cost of the product and length of total entertainment. I've almost never heard of someone complaining about how they could pay $10 for a 3 hour movie instead of $10 for a 2 hour movie, without mentioning the quality of the film at all. Sure, video games work with numbers that are significantly larger (20-60 hours in some cases for $50-$60) but why is it that gamers do not wish to think of their purchase in terms of quality, but instead in terms of quantity? $15 for 4-8 hours (more if you're into speed runs) of gameplay is not a terrible investment considering the length and cost of other entertainment options (many full price games, the movies, etc). Granted I purchased the game when it was a "deal of the week" for a mere ten dollars, but that was because I had always wanted to buy it and was pretty sure it wouldn't drop to that price again, not because I felt fifteen was unreasonable. If you have any appreciation for good games with very high production values, $15 is a great price.<br />
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To me,<b> Braid </b>remains one of the biggest surprises to the (potential) quality of XBLA games and the power of downloadable games as a whole. Before playing it, I had purchased few (if any) XBLA titles, and the ones I had purchased were 'safe bets' that were from companies I knew or extensions of known series. Now, I'm much more attentive to what is coming out each week on Xbox Live because you just never know when you might find the next "diamond in the rough". Considering how long it took me to purchase and then play it, the information is now a tad dated, but if you have yet to play <b>Braid </b>you should definitely look into purchasing it (or at least downloading a demo). And, hey, now it is available other places too - PC, MAC, and even PSN. So you don't even need an Xbox 360 anymore to enjoy it. So go out there, faithful readers, and do the time warp again!Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10849198565080158294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813246974673941322.post-1544370311013391442009-12-25T03:01:00.000-06:002009-12-25T03:01:14.252-06:00A Killer SequelSequels tend to do one of two things: one, act as a method by which a developer can lean on past works and positive critical acclaim to drive quick, easy sales for fast cash, or two, allow developers a chance to soften up the rough edges of a title and see their initial vision through to a better, more polished end the second time around. <br />
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The former, much like in Hollywood, is abused far too often and really gives sequels as a whole a bad wrap, to the point that even talking about anticipation of an upcoming sequel draws snappy comments and glaring looks from those smug, thumb-your-nose types who like to ramble on about how sequels are cop-outs that ruin creative thinking and are instead developer cash-ins on an old idea gone stale because they couldn't do something new and exciting. Yeah, we both know the types. But in a world where developers like EA can crank out an entirely "new" sports game every 9 months, or a market that will actually accept (and gladly support) <em>eleven</em> different Mario Party games - not even copy cats, mind you - since 1999, can you blame them?<br />
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The answer is no, especially since for every <strong>Mario Party</strong> or <strong>Madden</strong> (well, maybe every 2-3) there is instead a fresh, new, interesting concept that just needs a few adjustments to really shine or perhaps has a new tale to tell outside of its original one. Can you imagine what gaming would be like if we didn't have sequels? We'd never have <strong>Half-Life 2</strong>. You would never know of the wonders of Hyrule in 3-D (or reimagined 2-D for that matter). There would be no <strong>Final Fantasy 7</strong> to spark the JRPG craze, no <strong>Grand Theft Auto 3</strong> to practically define 'sandbox' gaming as we know it. And of course, more recently, we wouldn't have an <strong>Assassin's Creed 2</strong>. And that would be a real shame.<br />
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Granted, I'm not one of those people that really had that big of a problem with the first game. Yes I could see some small flaws but as a whole - and especially for a new IP trying to broaden or even change the definition of an entire genre - it was a near masterpiece of technical execution and a driving force in defining this generation of console's interactive entertainment. Sure there were some glitches, yeah not everything was totally polished and if you really forced yourself to be a completionist but didn't like it you would easily get frustrated, but as far as first passes go it was really a tour de force. But at that point I'm really reaching for reasons to fault the game aside from just admiting that even the best things aren't perfect.<br />
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That is, of course, until now. Assassin's Creed 2 is so much more vast, detailed, immersive and open-ended that it makes the first game look like a tech demo by comparison. I will not lie when I say that this was easily my most anticipated game of the year and I went in expecting great things, only to be blown away by how much more improved and built up everything was. Does it still have flaws? Definitely. Is it better in every way than the original? Absolutely. Is it "Game of the Year"? Well I don't remember exactly everything that came out this year (I should probably do a retrospective and comment on that) but it is easily up there with the rest of them, and likely leading. If you liked the first one even a little bit - if some small bit got you pulled in but you got frustrated, or maybe you liked it but thought it was a bit bland, or were aggrivated with the glitchy PS3 version, or just never really got all that into it, just close this window right now and go get a copy because I can almost guarantee this game will convince you that Ubisoft knows what it is doing, and doing it <em>well</em>.<br />
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Story wise the premise is the same - you go back in time (kinda) to become an Assassin and learn more about his life and the ultimate part you (the 'present day' character) play in this story. Except that the sequel picks up almost immediately where the first one left off and does not lazily walk you through the tutorial. From the first second you power on the game you are thrown into a hostile situation and you must learn (or relearn) many of the basic moves by means of actively using, not passively learning and copying. It is, in my opinion, a much more captivating way to familiarize the player to the controls that keeps them interested and doesn't make them feel like they have to have their hands held the entire time. The way they explain the concept of the control method, "puppeteering" (where the 4 buttons each represent a part of the body at all times) is especially neat and I think conveys the system's intent much better than the first game. <br />
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The first thing you will notice, though, as things cool down is that this time the story is not so much about the 'Assassin' of the past as it is the person. You spend a fair amount of time living out Ezio Auditore's (our new Assassin) early adult life, meeting his family and setting the stage for his eventual transition into the role of the Assassin and how he gets involved in all this. In the first game, Altair was not exactly a mute but he often was merely a tool used by Ubisoft to tell the story or give it more of a central point. You never really learn much about him, he's not even really all that likeable (he gets demoted for basically being a self centered know-it-all) and he really never is that relatable for a few breif moments near the end of the game. It is clear that Ubisoft spent more of it's time developing and crafting a world around Ezio (who you play as 95% of the time anyway) instead of throwing the part away as a gameplay device and trying to focus as much on the present time, and it shows. It helps make the game feel like it can stand on it's own more because you at least complete Ezio's part in the game (save the soon-to-be-released DLC), making the now famous cliffhanger endings that much more bearable. With more time spent on characters in that world as well, it gives many more unique and powerful supporting roles that really helps bring Italy alive as you play and explore. The world feels bigger, yet less vacant. There are more people but they aren't just more empty faces in a crowd. And there's more story of the character you actually play and get invested in, not of the one you rarely see. Overall, the presentation is improved in nearly every way and it really shows. <br />
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Gameplay wise, again, nearly the same, but with noted improvements to fix what was seen as 'bad' with the first one or just to make things a bit more intriguing or fun. Your arsenal grows substantially, and while you still have your staples in the hidden blade, short sword and sword, you can now pick custom weapons that have different strengths and weaknesses (ability to deflect, damage dealt, etc) as well as a slew of new (and wicked deadly) methods to choose from. Try the poison, which you can use on an unsuspecting guard to send them flailing around in a beserk rage at those around him before he expires. Or the smoke bombs, to quickly get out of sticky situations without having to be constantly chased down and knocked over by guards. There are many more incredibly useful new toys to play with, but I'll do my best to save you the surprises for yourself in case you ever pick up the game. Suffice it to say that if you ever found yourself thinking that the fighting in the first game was too boring and repetitive, there are so many new weapons and gadgets to choose from that you'll be hard pressed to go even 10 minutes killing every guard the same way. <br />
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And, ironically enough, you hardly even have to fight if you don't want to. New gameplay options like blending and hiring helpers can get you much farther much faster than just brute force slayings ever could. Need some guards distracted? Hire some courtesans to flirt with them while you sneak past. How about need some guards moved so you can go for the kill on the guy they are guarding? Call over some theives and have them steal from one of the guards and they will give chase. Maybe you just want to get through a crowded, guarded area without being seen. Blend in with crowds and even walk with them undetected (and not just select people like the first game - pretty much any group of peope). Of course, if you prefer the brute force method, round up a few mercenary friends to fight by your side as you take down a large group of enemies. There are many ways to help keep the pressure off you so you don't have to fight 40 guards between you and your next true victim. <br />
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Speaking of victims, the story plays out much more like a story now and much less like a list of chores you need to accomplish before you are given your allowance. No more choosing from a list of side missions that are available and being forced to complete some number of them before you are allowed to proceed. Everything you do plays its part in the story and helps to set up the next kill in a very linear, easy to follow fashion. Side missions are still there - races make a still-aggrivating comeback, as well as do small-fry assassinations and new events like "beat ups" - but they are entirely optional and usually only give money and completion. Many of the hired, non-story assassinations end up being quite challening and fun, and there are so many that if you do every side mission between 'real' ones that you could easily go 3-5 hours between story bits just exploring and completing things that have recently opened up to you. Even more OCD things - like feather collecting - make an appearance, but even they are more well organized and better executed than the first. <br />
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The main storyline offers enough different gameplay to really show off the new system and keep you interested while not becoming too monotonous (with one notable exception being the 'fetch' quest at the end, but even then that's probably not too bad unless you just ignored every side item available to you ever), all the while improved and expanded on with a better story and characters to really help it along. At this point if you honestly think the game is still "repetitive" you either need to be doing something different every 5 seconds, in which case you need professional help for some supercharged ADHD, or you just have a vendetta against the game and like to use popular buzzwords to slap it down. Between your new toys, the new missions and the much better story and characters, there is really no reason for you to go around doing the same thing every time except your own laziness. <br />
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Graphically the game is a marvel of the raw power of this generation of devices (just like the last), but is even more pleasing because instead of harsh, bland desert to see for miles around you get things like green mountainsides, vast oceans or bustling cities. Somehow the facial animations and lip-synching seem to have taken a bizzare step in the backwards direction, often being difficult or awkward to look in close ups but otherwise fine at long distance, but otherwise animation is generally smooth and impressive. The new kills and counter kills are incredibly brutal (and an absolute joy to watch) although the occasional hiccup/glitch can sometimes leave you stealing money from out of the air or breaking the 'knee' of a wall but considering all the incredible things it tries to accomplish I can almost say that I'm amazed it doesn't happen <em>more</em>. All together it's significantly more polished than the first ever was, but it leaves me wondering if perhaps they are capping out the raw throughput of current-gen tech and are just having to find weird or different ways to hide it in the world as it grows and evolves. <br />
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When all is said and done, <strong>Assassin's Creed 2</strong> is everything done right in a sequel: Improvements across the board in almost every possible way while really expanding the scope of the game and helping cement it's style in place. It is extremely difficult to think of a reason NOT to recommend this game as I believe even people who strongly disliked the first have a good reason to give this one a try, and people who loved the first have no excuse for not already owning it. A few minor flaws aside, <strong>Assassin's Creed 2</strong> helps Ubisoft prove it has a winner in it's newest franchise that only left me wanting more, which I will get in the form of DLC in January and Feburary. After that, well, it's probably another 2 years of wondering exactly where the next game will take place and patiently waiting for even the smallest hints of news about it. After seeing how much they improved between #1 and #2, I can't wait to see what they can do with the third iteration.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10849198565080158294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813246974673941322.post-90175149635905427812009-12-20T16:09:00.000-06:002009-12-20T16:09:06.593-06:00It'll leave you wishing for an apocalypse...A friend of mine recently reminded me (read: chided me) for not reviewing recently, and after looking here and realizing I haven't written anything since early September, I have to completely agree with him. I've been lazy and should really fix that. So, here we go, the completion of something I started in September (although I don't feel bad because the game is over a year old at this point) and promise of attempting to be more diligent in the future (we're heard that one before though, right?).<br />
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I actually had someone request two reviews of me: one was for <b>World of Goo</b>, which I was more than happy to do, and <b>Fallout 3</b>. While it looks like I'm merely doing these because I was requested to (more requests are certainly appreciated, hint hint), the fact that I just very recently finished it is equally as good of an excuse to write a review for it. So, while the game is not exactly new, my experience of definitely it is.<br />
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I will honestly say that, besides being <i>aware </i>of the <b>Fallout </b>franchise, I was otherwise completely oblivious to anything about it. I haven't played the first two games, nor any of the spinoffs associated with it, so I was completely oblivious of its history and roots. The first time I actually even saw a <b>Fallout </b>game was at PAX08, watching the Bethesda team show off their demos on the expo floor and going to the <b>Fallout 3</b> panel to watch them more fully explain/show off what the game could do. The game looked impressive visually, but I had one small problem with it that I couldn't overcome that prevented me from getting hyped about it. Ironically, that problem is <i>freedom</i>.<br />
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You see, I am one of those people that still has nightmares about <b>Morrowind</b>. I can not even begin to tell you how many times I have started <b>Morrowind</b>, only to get so engrossed and so involved in the game that I completely forgot where I was, what I was doing or where I was attempting to go. The freedom offered by those games actually paralyzes me to the point that I no longer find interest in the game because I cannot keep focused on anything and get overwhelmed at what I've gotten myself into. Case in point: on one play though, I was playing through <b>Morrowind </b>and had gotten about as far as I'd ever gotten. I'd done my best to try and stay focused on ONLY the main story and to give it my best shot at "beating" the game, if it's even possible to call it that. I played off and on for several weeks, not devoting my full attention to it but simply attempting to continue to move through the game. I got to a quest in the game that required me to retrieve a special book of some kind, I don't exactly remember what, but I had (apparently) already gone and picked up this book... and promptly lost it. I looked around the town to see if I had sold it somewhere, or perhaps placed it down in one of my impromptu "houses" but it was completely lost. My freedom to steal, sell, and place absolutely anything anywhere had found a way to block my progress yet again, and to this day I've never gotten farther than that. <br />
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So when people talked about <b>Fallout </b>being "like <b>Oblivion</b>" (which I had never picked up for much the same reasons), and it was being created by pretty much the exact same team, I was instantly turned off. Another open world game that I'm going to get completely lost in? Yeah, no thanks. So I managed to survive the hype, watching as Bethesda released the game to huge critical and commercial success, pushed out a truckload of extra DLC goodies, and maintain a constant stream of coverage in gaming news and commentary articles everywhere. But eventually, as I tend to do, I caved. Too many people just said too many good things about this game for me to ignore it anymore. I just had to play the final copy for myself to see if it was actually something I can get into.<br />
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100 hours later, I think I can safely say that was a good decision (if not a really, really long one).<br />
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The game has a very interesting way of starting you off in a sort of glorified tutorial, letting you see your own birth, determining what you would look like in the future, using your baby years to determine your stats, and your teenage years to determine your skills or style of play. It does a pretty good job of catering to both newcomers and replayers alike, allowing you to skip the test parts to determine your own stats directly without requiring you to know the specific answers you need to choose. It is always nice when a developer takes the boring (yet often necessary) tutorial and spends time working it into their world. Certainly much more friendly, intuitive and fun to do than sitting through screen after screen of character creation options like I did in <b>Morrowind</b>.It really helps add to that sense of being involved in the story and a part of the world.<br />
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After your story <i>really </i>begins, well, you step out into one of the most expansive and marvelous spans of desolation and destruction I've seen in a while. Yes, it suffers from your standard "realistic graphics" problems - lots of greys and browns with nothing really stylized or colorful to speak of - and the post apocalyptic setting does absolutely nothing to help this. Most of what you'll see in the world is little more than an eerily empty wasteland, occasionally inhabited by wild creatures or bandits. But that doesn't mean the entire world suffers for it. It may be hard to have the drab, boring landscapes take you in, but that style really does capture the state of the world quite well and help make the few inhabited areas of the world feel a little bit more lively. Despite not being much to look at aesthetically, some areas really will catch your attention. Maybe it's the skyscraper that stands tall over the otherwise ruined buildings, the luscious trees clumped together in the middle of the barren world, or just the shock of seeing the more iconic monuments of Washington D.C. partially destroyed and overrun with mutants. It may be somewhat bland and dark, but the game presents itself quite well and uses what it has to full effect.<br />
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Unfortunately, that means both the good with the bad. People still look and 'feel' more like robots than they do humans, shuffling stiffly from area to area and never really looking 'normal' doing so. Dialogue and facial animations are even worse, never quite selling you on what is being said and the emotion being portrayed, which is sad because the voice acting in the game is rather top-notch. The radio personality "Three Dog" (or is it "dawg"?) has a very powerful and interesting personality over the radio, made even stronger by the fact he is often your last connection to humanity as you traverse the empty wastes in your quest, but in person the mystique and personality is just ruined by clunky animations and awful facial expressions. Maybe Valve has really spoiled us with the amazing work they did on <b>Half Life 2</b>, but it has been very hard of late to find games that can truly overcome the stiff, robotic feel of physical movement and speech.<br />
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Fortunately for you, very little of that matters because you will be so busy lapping up the detailed world and all of the things you can do in it that you'll hardly notice (or care) all that much about those things. While <b>Fallout 3</b> is probably as expansive (if not more so) than <b>Morrowind</b>, it solves many of the problems I had with it through better gameplay decisions and UI choices. While there are many missions you may choose to go on at any time, they are all noted, collected and organized directly with your map in a way that leaves absolutely no question as to where you need to go or what you need to do. Even notes or speech that triggered the objective are kept around in case you would like to listen again or might need a specific piece of information to guide you in the right direction. This is especially true of the main story, where it is most needed, and really helps because often times you will spend 8-10 hours doing side tasks and completely forget what you were doing and where you needed to go.<br />
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There are still some small quests that have no formal means of tracking, but these are usually side quests that have no real bearing on the story (or your character) and are more for the rewards, back story, or just to add general flavor to the world. While it is easy to get lost or forget what you were doing on those, I'm personally OK with that because it did not hinder me from 'beating' the game and allows those who are interested in doing so they chance to really explore the world on their own. Despite being so adamant about wanting to make sure I always have a firm grasp of where I'm supposed to go and what I'm supposed to do next in a game, I still believe that there should be some reward and sense of accomplishment for just exploring, as that is something that many people still like to do.<br />
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Fast travel is an amazing addition, letting you quickly travel to any place you've been to before, from anywhere in the world, so long as you aren't near enemies or in an area where you shouldn't be able to do so. Some may argue that it ruins the size of the world by being able to do that, but very rarely do I want to spend 20-30 minutes trekking back to a town just to buy or sell something. I get a good enough idea of the size and scope of the world as I am uncovering new places and going new areas. I don't want to be reminded of how big it is when the game tells me I need to go halfway across the map for my next quest, I just want to get back to the action!<br />
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Like any good Bethesda RPG, you can customize your character in any number of ways - from hair to shape to stats and abilities - and can play the game multiple different ways and still succeed. I chose to play as a sneaky, small arms type but you could just as easily be a tough, big arms type or a quick, melee weapon fighter (or even a more dialogue and bartering type, although there are parts where combat is difficult if not impossible to avoid). How you interact with the populace and complete missions can effect your karma score, making you and angel or a devil in the eyes of the world and changing how they interact and deal with you in other ways. Maybe as an evil character, good NPCs might be more wary of you or unwilling to co-operate, or as a good player you are showered with gifts and adoration from the ones that you have saved from the harsh realities of the wasteland.<br />
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There is nothing terribly fancy that occurs based on your alignment (with a few notable exceptions), and typically it is just another "stat" that you can customize that affects what your character has access to, but the system is well implemented throughout and would make a second playthrough as the opposite type feel and play very different. Unfortunately it is extremely easy to become evil and very difficult and time consuming to go back to good, and occasionally you will perform actions that have consequences you did not expect or intend, but overall it does help make you feel like you are having a real impact on the world around you and the lives you are affecting (for good or ill). <br />
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The combat is generally fun and entertaining - especially as you crit and blow off limbs or the like - and the VATS system helps break it up a little bit by letting you aim for weak spots and take down enemies faster. Of course, there is so much to do in the world and so many different places to explore that eventually it can start to feel very repetitive and boring regardless of how fun or interesting it was, especially on enemies to whom you are not well equipped (or built) to handle. For instance, my small arms character had a very difficult time with many of the robotic enemies because few (if any) of my weapons did significant damage to them and they tend to have very large health pools to go with their very high damage resistance. The combat is just no longer very interesting when you have to dump 5-6 entire clips worth of ammunition into something and continuously heal hoping that you can kill it before it kills you. I suppose that, when playing as a character that focused on bigger, more powerful weapons, those types of mobs might not be very tedious, but then you couldn't sneak past many fights like I could, so it seems like every playstyle might have a few aggravating moments to it. Not that 'a few moments' are enough to ruin a 100 hour experience, but they are still worth noting.<br />
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Occasionally, combat bugs out and will shoot areas you did not intend or otherwise not perform as expected, but this is a rare (and unfortunate) occurrence that is just one part of a much larger problem the game suffers from: bugs. And I don't mean the radscorpions that hunt you down in game. I mean the "whoops my game froze and I haven't saved in a while", "I'm being attacked but can't see my enemy", " I'm looking for an NPC who hasn't spawned or is walking the wasteland for no apparent reason" kind. You would be hard pressed to play 2-3 hours of the game without running into some kind of bug, although most of them are small and not huge deal breakers. There are enough big ones to really give you a headache, and in fact I stopped playing after nearly 100 hours due to a bug that prevented me from collecting all of the bobble heads, so the game is far from perfect on that. I feel bad even mentioning it, considering what a monumental task it must be to expect someone to actually be able to test, find, and fix every single bug in a game as massive as<b> Fallout 3</b>, but just because I understand the amount of time it would take to find and fix it does not assuage me when I fall victim to one myself. If I had one *real* complaint about the game it would be the number of bugs that still exist, even after all of the patches.<br />
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Despite this, the game maintains a very nice level of overall polish that really helps it stand out. The individual portions of the game might not be incredible on their own - the story is good but not exceptional, the voices are well done but the characters are poorly animated, etc - but the way that Bethesda has weaved them all together and just the sheer amount of love and detail that has gone into creating this world is more than enough reason to give this game a shot. Not only does the disc itself have enough content to last you 60+ hours, but there are 5 downloadable expansions that can easily extend the game into the 100 hour range (note: I only downloaded and played Broken Steel, which I thought was very good), and if that's not enough you could always play through again as a different combat style or alignment for an almost completely new experience. If you are the kind of person that hates buying games for a 6 hour campaign only to then shelf it for life, you do not need worry here. This game will be with you a long, long time.<br />
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So what are you waiting for? Post Apocalyptic America is calling your name.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10849198565080158294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813246974673941322.post-58261250937342793672009-09-03T15:52:00.000-05:002009-09-03T15:52:50.458-05:00Proof that Physics is Phun!In the past few years I have slowly come to grips with the fact that the video game industry is producing more content than I am capable of actually partaking of. Despite having interest in dozens of new games each year, the physical limitations placed upon me by the flow of time cause me to purchase and really play about 6 or so. This problem is further compounded by used and older game prices falling drastically over time, allowing me to make impulse decisions and purchase games I might not otherwise have purchased simply for the sake of experimentation (I certainly would have not purchased something like <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">The Simpsons </span>at full price, although it ended up being slightly better than expected). What does this mean? Well, it means I'm staring a fall release schedule square in the face, 4 months away from the yearly gift giving extravaganza, a stack of almost 8 games either unbeaten or unplayed across multiple platforms sitting next to me, and many still sitting on store shelves currently tempting me with tales of intrigue and adventure. It's just not fair, I tell you.<br /><br />But in reality, the person it's not fair for is not me - it's smaller developers. How does an independent developer compete with companies like Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft and Blizzard - not just in quality, but in marketing, visibility and promotion? It was often very hard trying to sell niche games in profitable quantities when the only thing on a gamer's mind was a mutli-million dollar budget, super huge mega-triple-AAA first party title that was coming out soon. It wasn't exactly impossible, but you had to make deals with devils - often getting bigger companies like Activision or Ubisoft to help publish and promote you, at the obvious cost of some independence and profit. Even with a promoter and critical acclaim, many unique titles fell by the wayside due to sheer glut of the market. You always hear stories about these types of games - like Pyschonauts, Okami or Beyond Good and Evil - that get rave reviews but still bomb in the marketplace. Breaking out in the industry is not easy.<br /><br />Enter: digital distribution. Things like Steam, the Xbox Live Arcade, WiiWare and PSN have helped to dramatically improve and streamline distribution channels to the end consumer. The limited number of potential users (vs. Retail), restrictions on content (file size), and general scope of the game (usually smaller, cheaper titles; possibly episodic) for a time scared away big developers used to the tried and true method of "release to retail at $50/$60 and sell millions". It was a new frontier of delivery and many companies were afraid or just didn't know how to handle the changes to the norm. But it's time like these where little developers willing to take risks and innovate can really shine and become known. And, thus, <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">World of Goo</span> was born. Or Oozed. Or whatever.<br /><br />Moving on.<br /><br />It seems likely you've heard of <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">World of Goo</span> by now: the media was in a love affair over the game and it is often touted as the poster child for how digital distribution can be done properly. And, to be fair, rightly so. Like <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Braid</span>, the story of it's development cycle seems to be something based on a work of fiction instead of real life. That 3 people could collaborate and create a game for as little as $100,000 (as a point of reference, <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Halo 3</span> is reported to have cost $30 million to develop, not including marketing/promotion) that could go on to win numerous awards and receive critical praise, wide industry awareness and strong sales is an absolutely astonishing feat. <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">World of Goo</span> has helped to show that Digital Distribution is the savior of unique, niche, or independent titles that otherwise could never make it in the original industry model. But you're not here for a history lesson, are you? You want to know if the game was actually worth the $15. The answer is, unequivocally, <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">yes</span>.<br /><br />Graphically, do not approach this game thinking you will be partaking in high art, seeing super-realistic-looking environments, or being blown away by special effects. The game looks like it could have been drawn by a child and, by and large, makes no attempts to stun or wow you with effects and colors. But what it lacks in "traditional" graphics, it makes up in spades with atmosphere, simplicity and innovation. The first time you look at <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">World of Goo</span>, it seems very rudimentary. But the game builds upon this very simple base and transports you places and shows you things that will often surprising and intrigue you. Maybe it's the subtle animations of the "characters", the goo that you interact with as you play the game bursting to life. Maybe it is the bizarre and interactive environments, like the frog creature you build a bridge out of, or the green tinted, pixelated backdrops. Whatever it is, <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">World of Goo</span> has ways of grabbing and maintaining your attention in ways that are not standard in the industry, and that makes the final product that much more appealing. It is no where close to the best looking game I've ever played, but that hardly keeps it from being enjoyable to look at.<br /><br />Where the game truly begins to shine is in it's deceivingly simple but additively challenging gameplay. At it's core, <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">World of Goo</span> is nothing more than your basic, run of the mill physics puzzle: build a structure spanning point A to point B and win. The first few levels hardly deviate from this base, but as you progress with the game new options and new challenges await. New goo balls are added as you progress that drastically alter what you can do in the world and how you go about achieving your goals. Balloon type goo balls help to hold your colossal structures aloft, but perhaps there are now hazards on the ground which must be avoided. Red goo balls are highly flamable, so you have to make sure that you don't get them near any sort of flame or your whole tower will come crumbling down in a ball of fire. There is also goo that detaches and can be reattached to make progressive, "moving" structures, slimey goo that merely hangs off wherever it is attached, goo balls that may be flung as projectiles to new locations... the list goes on and on. Just when you think you've mastered the current set of tools given to you, a new goo type is introduced and you are required to rethink all of your strategies to adapt to this new addition. It really helps to keep the game fresh and new over the course of the five chapters.<br /><br />That fact alone is probably what sold me on World of Goo being so good. The amount of content available, the variety, and the way it is presented is done very well and keeps you engaged throughout the entire game. It doesn't throw it at you too fast, nor does it hold your hand the entire way (although it does give you hints and tips as you first meet different goo types). Nothing feels forced or awkward; each type is well fleshed out to provide unique challenges that keep gameplay fun. You hardly, if ever, play the same level twice, although it will sometimes ask you to peform similar tasks with new twists. Despite being essentially the same thing over and over again (build tower or bridge, get to pipe, win level), there is so much that changes and alters the world that it always feels different. In a sense, it is like <strong>Portal</strong>: a simple, unique gameplay element that is aways modified slightly to constantly evolve into newer and better things without feeling stale. But don't worry, <strong>World of Goo</strong> will give you more play time than <strong>Portal</strong>.<br /><br />That's because, not only are there dozens of levels and tons of different goo types, but each level has a specific challenge (called OCD) that is specific to that level. Sometimes it is finishing the level with a large number of extra goo balls. Other times, it's completing the level in a specific amount of time. (Personally, those are the most annoying, because being both quick and accurate on the PC/Wiiware is more aggrivating than it is worth.) And these aren't throw away challenges, either. These are genuinely hard. Heck, many of the levels themselves are exceptionally difficult without going for challenges. OCD is a perfectly appropriate term for people who are dedicated and willing enough to try and earn all the flags. This is not, by any means, an easy task.<br /><br />To top it off, the game also includes a completely optional sort of "sand box" mode, where you are tasked with taking all of the goo balls you save on each level and build it into as tall of a tower as you possibly can. This is then constantly updated into their online data base, which you can compare against your friends and against other people in the game. It will show you (in the background) people whose towers are just a little bit higher than yours, always taunting you to continue the climb and try to reach that next level of edificial fame. I'm pretty sure that's not a real word, but I like the sound of it so I'm going with it.<br /><br />Perhaps it's just the engineer in me talking, but all of this together made for a very fun, extremely addictive game that I was able to complete over a span of a few weeks. It is nice to have games like <strong>World of Goo</strong>, that are very easy to pick up and put down for any length of time while still feeling like you are accomplishing something (that is, if you can drag yourself away from it long enough to put it down). While it does have it's share of frustrations, especially as you build a large tower only to have it topple 5 yards from the goal, there is a way to "go back" a few moves on most levels to prevent yourself from having to start all over. Don't waste them, though, because you eventually run out and do have to start from scratch.<br /><br />All in all, <strong>World of Goo</strong> represents the coming of the digital, independent age. It is living proof that a good idea does not need thousands of developers and millions of dollars to be a critical and commercial success. Sure, it didn't make as much as <strong>Halo</strong> does and it may not sell as many copies as a <strong>Mario</strong> game, but proves that all it takes is a great idea and a few good people and you can make your way in the industry. The future of digital distriution has never looked so bright.... or gooey. If you have even the slightest interest in this genre, it comes highly recommended.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10849198565080158294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813246974673941322.post-39707534310363296492009-08-26T17:30:00.001-05:002009-08-26T17:32:16.018-05:00Judge not, lest ye be judged<span style="font-weight: bold;">Final Fantasy Tactics Advance</span> had its flaws, but the game was enjoyable and gave Square Enix a great start to something that could turn into a viable series on portable systems. Since I do not own PSP, and as such have not played <span style="font-weight: bold;">Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions</span>, I had been relegated to patiently waiting for Square-Enix to develop a sequel to <span style="font-weight: bold;">FFTA</span>. It took them almost 5 years and a completely different portable system to make one, but the real question is: had they used that time wisely to improve on the faults of the original? It's difficult to answer straight yes or no (but you've come to expect this from me).<br /><br />Enter <span style="font-weight: bold;">Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimore of the Rift</span>. The game is almost identical in looks to the first title, which is more good than bad considering some of the great art and technical marvel Square-Enix puts into its games. Immediately appealing to those new to the game and pleasantly inviting to fans of the original, the environments, characters and monsters are beautifully stylized and really help show how the Nintendo DS can excel when given proper artistic direction. But by now we've all learned that looks aren't everything, right?<br /><br />Storywise, <span style="font-weight: bold;">FFTA2 </span>is very similar to <span style="font-weight: bold;">FFTA</span>, which is definitely not a compliment. Not only is it extremely shallow and completely lacking in immersion, but for those returning from the original it is nothing more than a plot rehash with a slightly different "flavor". There is a certain level of fan service vis a vis some character cameos and the like, as well as a more fleshed out tie in to other "Ivalice Alliance" games (<span style="font-weight: bold;">FFTA</span>, <span style="font-weight: bold;">FFXII</span>, etc), but it feels very uninspired and is not even close to being original and unique. It doesn't turn me off from the game completely, since I'm mostly there to play the game like an excel spreadsheet on steroids, but when I'm not even the least bit bothered that the new 20 missions available to me are going to cause me to not see the story play out for at least another 2 weeks I begin to grow concerned, or at the very least disappointed. Perhaps I am just too spoiled by the huge, epic flair of normal <span style="font-weight: bold;">Final Fantasy </span>games, but even the original <span style="font-weight: bold;">FFT </span>(for all it's confusion) was bizarre, twisted and <span style="font-style: italic;">interesting</span>. I don't think I should be at fault for hoping that a game's story will at least pique my interest, if not hold it.<br /><br />It certainly doesn't help that most of the characters are equally as shallow and uninviting. The main character is an almost exact copy from <span style="font-weight: bold;">FFTA</span>: lost, helpless and attempting to find his way home. The "love interest" starts out actually being a very curious character, but is later dragged along in normal cliche fashion, presumably for ease of plot integration. The cameos are awkwardly forced and especially bland (although perhaps this is because I've yet to give <span style="font-weight: bold;">FFXII </span>it's due diligence) and most of your squad mates are just randomly named, mindless drones that you have no real connection with. This is where <span style="font-weight: bold;">Fire Emblem</span> greatly outshines the <span style="font-weight: bold;">FFT </span>series - all characters you control are given a story, a life and a purpose and it really helps add in that extra layer of immersion and interest. When your characters are nameless zombies that just happen to be along for the ride, well, they are more like tools than people, and the onus is left on what few story "characters" there are to carry a load they are just simply unable to bear successfully. It is just really hard to build anything of meaning or substance around an entire world of battle fodder.<br /><br />Design wise, the game comes with just as many improvements on the original as it does new problems. There are still many of the things here that made <span style="font-weight: bold;">FFTA </span>so good: an astonishing number of missions, a diversity of mission goals, a large number of available jobs and races, mastering abilities through equipped items, etc. All the basics necessary for a truly extraordinary strategy experience are here, but once again it gets dragged down by absurd design decisions.<br /><br />First off you have laws. Yes, laws are back, but they have been changed so surely they fixed them, right? Perhaps in word, but not in fact. Maybe Square-Enix only heard people complain about how laws punish you, so instead they flipped the idea on its head and had laws only reward you. "Neat", you might think, "they solved the biggest problem with laws". And at first, I completely agreed. No more jails! No more cards! No more ridiculous fines! And, like before, the first few missions go OK; a few utterly worthless rewards (mostly items you have dozens of already) and a small damage bonus or the like. Nothing to really make you hesitate to break laws, but a huge boon from the "punishable by severe hindrance" that was <span style="font-weight: bold;">FFTA</span>.<br /><br />But where <span style="font-weight: bold;">FFTA </span>swings the pendulum too far into punishment, <span style="font-weight: bold;">FFTA2 </span>swings too far toward reward. At first it seems like a very contradictory statement - that offering too much reward is somehow 'bad' - but at some point not obtaining the reward becomes the new "severe punishment". You can at one point early in the game earn the ability to increase the AP you earn after a battle substantially. Since AP is used to learn new skills through items, it can generally be considered as a (usually very powerful) form of character progression, like leveling. Unfortunately, the bonus gets so huge that you feel almost hindered by the 'usual' method of leveling, and since breaking a law will lose you this reward it is often times still "better" (from a time spent perspective) to restart a mission and try again than it would be to suffer the consequences.<br /><br />That is, of course, if you actually CHOSE to break that law. Often times, you do not. I cannot even begin to count the number of times I either accidentally broke a law. For instance, sometimes the law is vague and I'm not quite sure what would qualify. Sometimes I would just completely forget what the law was. Sometimes even randomness or computer controlled characters break laws for me. Crit a mob when you weren't supposed to? Have a character do more than X amount of damage? Sorry, start over. The worst yet is laws that were literally impossible to follow - like preventing higher level characters from attacking lower level ones... in zones where I have completely outleveled the mobs. How is that fun when you don't even have an OPTION to follow the laws? This puts us right back in the same spot we were in <span style="font-weight: bold;">FFTA</span>: laws becoming more of an inconvenience than a gameplay enhancing device.<br /><br />Again, I'd love to have something that causes me to change my strategies that are not "choices" to be determined in a risk vs. reward scenario, because tuning the rewards with the risks is almost impossible to do in a game of this scope. Either the risk is too great and not worth taking or the reward is too little and not worth bothering with. And some of the laws - like "don't use daggers" or other super specific nonsense - require painstaking upkeep of character inventory, which is not really something I like doing outside of the already crazy amount I <span style="font-style: italic;">actually like</span> doing to maximize character stats and abilities. If a min-maxer like myself doesn't like the absurd tediousness of the system, how can your average player have any hope of not becoming absolutely frustrated?<br /><br />A passive, slight tilt of power in a specific direction that changes from mission to mission would be a significantly better implementation then a "risk/reward" system because it removes the choice aspect (which is near impossible to balance) and instead requires you to rethink your strategy and plan around it. Maybe melee damage is reduced by 25% so you focus a bit more on magic damage, or healing is reduced by 50% so you are required to play more defensively. Don't remove options completely, but shift balances of power just enough that it helps to promote a more adaptive tactical strategy for each fight. Something like this would help remove the monotony of using the same characters with the same moves in the same manners every fight and could really challenge the player to learn and master aspects of the game they previously did not focus on. It could just as easily go to far (i.e. all characters have magic immunity) and become insanely restrictive, but the idea is to not take it that far and still leave some options available to those with strange or unbalanced team builds.<br /><br />Of course, to achieve this, you would also need to make the game <span style="font-style: italic;">actually difficult</span>. Even playing on "hard" difficulty, the only time I was even remotely challenged by missions were the ones where I was grossly outleveled, i.e. my characters are level 30 and my enemies are level 90+. Strategy games are supposed to be about being mentally challenged, planning new strategies to overcome difficult obstacles and facing new challenges. Instead, <span style="font-weight: bold;">FFTA2</span> is almost entirely devoid of even a modicum of difficulty and proceeding through missions feels tedious because you could win even without really paying attention to what was going on around you. I understand it is possible that my completionist nature and frequent use of Bonus AP 3 caused me to quickly out pace the challenges presented to me in the area of the game I was in, but even if that is the case I would hope they could find some way to scale in difficulty as you progressed. A strategy/tactics game that requires <span style="font-style: italic;">neither </span>to play loses your interest very quickly; it would be like playing an FPS with nothing to shoot or an adventure game with nowhere to go. It just doesn't work.<br /><br />Some of the new side items and tidbits are interesting, but by and large they do not stand up well over the course of the game. The "Auction" system is a unique minigame that you can play over time to gain control over territories and even win some items, and the 'achievement' style progression is really fun to work towards completing. Eventually, though, you gain the ability to simply buy so many coins that other clans cannot hope to ever win and the winnings no longer hold any real value to you for various reasons, so it falls by the wayside. The restrictions on times available and travel limitations compound frustrations with the system, especially when trying to build up clan power, and likely only act as a way to prevent you from winning everything on your first go.<br /><br />The bazaar is one of my favorite new inclusions to the game, actually, and helps to add variety and challenges to obtaining new weapons beside amassing large amounts of gold. It also helps to give you small, incremental goals to work on while churning through the hundreds of missions in the game and gives your characters a much smoother progression curve than normal, as you can exert some choice behind how and when you collect the items necessary to create specific items. That being said, an actual guide and/or list of items and where to find them would be nice to have in the game itself. Frustrations with finding specific ones simply lead players to look them up online, which could be solved by at least providing some general direction or guidance for finding items.<br /><br />My tone thus far might come off as strongly negative, but this is not because the game is completely terrible. Instead, it is because this is twice that I've seen what could otherwise be an extremely fun and interesting concept being mutilated by improper direction. This is clearly the case of Square-Enix trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, and it is not doing their otherwise stellar game justice. I have easily put 90+ hours into <span style="font-weight: bold;">FFTA2 </span>over the course of several months and completed over 200 missions, but at one point my interest in the game began to wane. It simply offered no real challenge, provided nothing of intrigue (story, characters or otherwise) and was beginning to feel almost more like a chore than a game. Was it still worth playing? I'd say so. May I go back and finish it one day? Possibly, if I run out of other portable games. Could it have been much better? Yes. Definitely yes.<br /><br />If you've purchased neither, I would definitely recommend <span style="font-weight: bold;">Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon</span> (I guess that means I have to review that at some point) over <span style="font-weight: bold;">FFTA2</span>, but for anyone who enjoyed the first looking for a game that contains a lifetime and a half of solid (but not stellar) gameplay, <span style="font-weight: bold;">FFTA2 </span>would definitely be worth looking into.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10849198565080158294noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813246974673941322.post-17220528088301598632009-07-16T08:00:00.001-05:002009-07-16T10:02:51.584-05:00You be the Judge<span>The original </span><span>plan was to try and review both <span style="font-weight: bold;">FFTA </span>and <span style="font-weight: bold;">FFTA2</span>, but I felt that I should go ahead and release what I've completed so far to make up for almost 3 months of absence. It's been a pretty busy summer, and it doesn't help I've been excessively lazy about writing reviews too. I'll try to pick it back up as best I can. Without further ado, my review of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced</span>.<br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Final Fantasy Tactics</span> was by far and away one of the best games on the original PlayStation. It had a nice but complex story (made even more difficult to comprehend by a shoddy translation), incredible art, great characters and - the real kicker - absolutely amazing gameplay. The 20 some odd jobs, the job tree, the experience/job point systems, itemization and skills made for insanely addicting tactical gameplay that you could lose yourself in for hours at a time. It received a fair amount of critical acclaim - certainly not as much as the coat tails it attempts to ride on - and sales were healthy for a spinoff title, so it is somewhat surprising that it took Square 6 years to create a true successor to the series. Even more surprising was the news it would be on a Nintendo platform.<br /><br />Enter <span style="font-weight: bold;">Final Fantasty Tactics Advance</span>, <a href="http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2002/20020311h.gif">considered by some</a> to be Square and Nintendo's attempt to make up for the bad blood that turned up during the N64 era. As the ray of hope that the glory days of the SNES were back, there could be no greater. In the end, it became a confusing but strong portable installment of a beloved series. It certainly had its problems, and was not nearly as well received as it's predecessor (which ALSO had its own set of problems), but I still feel it was a good first attempt at moving tactical games over to portable systems. Understanding the faults and strengths of the original is key to breaking down the operating procedures of the sequel, which I intend to do next.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">FFTA</span>'s greatest flaw (and, in my opinion, strength) was based around the very convoluted "law" system that was implemented to make each battle play out differently. The idea was that laws would be used to restrict specific actions and reward others in order to make you adapt your playstyle. This was a pretty promising concept - essentially preventing the usual monotony of using the same characters, abilities and skills on every map - and was really something I was looking forward to. As a lover of tactical/strategy games, one of my most annoying pet peeves is when one weapon or one action is so powerful that it becomes 90%+ of your damage. Examples would be things like always just "attacking" in RPGs to do damage, having very simplistic 1-2 spell "dps rotations" in MMOs, or having armies that consist of 1 type of unit in an RTS. It is neither fun nor challenging to the player to include a "hold A to win!" kind of battle system in your game. Which is why this "law" system seemed to be so promising. When described, it sounds exactly like something that would force you to think, plan, and deploy differently each battle and really require you to know how to use your units and maximize their abilities.<br /><br />Unfortunately, the execution is very awkward and it becomes more frustrating than liberating. The system is enforced by judges that will monitor your actions and assign cards, similar to soccer, where breaking a law (without killing another unit) is a yellow card and breaking a law that results in the death of a unit is an immediate red card. Yellow cards usually bring monetary penalties with them - loss of gil or items - and sometimes even worse outcomes, like permanent stat reduction or loss of equipped items. The benefit of doing "recommended" actions is merely JP which can be used to perform summons later in the game, something almost completely unnecessary considering how easy and/or powerful your characters will be by that time if guided and leveled correctly. This means that breaking the law usually carried with it grave penalties that were sometimes way too harsh without offering any sort of real reward.<br /><br />And since <span style="font-weight: bold;">FFTA </span>is a portable game where you can stop and start at a moment's notice, either by saving mid battle or perhaps just pausing for a few minutes, it was very easy to forget which laws were in effect and accidentally do something that was forbidden. What's worse, you might have a character "accidentally" break the law, by perhaps being confused or berserked by enemy players, adding significant frustration to an otherwise well planned battle. As the game continued on, it could stack 2 or even 3 laws in the same battle and perhaps render half or more of your army completely useless. What good is a black mage that can't use magic, or a soldier that can't attack? It's OK to have this happen when there is only 1 law and you can try and adapt your team around it, but when your entire team consists of dragoons because you can't use anyone else without fear of breaking the law, it has gone from a challenge to a nuisance.<br /><br />What's worse (or better, as some may see it), after a point you were given the ability to change the laws at will with "law cards". At first this makes the system a bit more bearable, because you can cancel out laws that are extremely annoying or detrimental to your strategy. However, after a while it ends up being nothing more than an extra amount of micromanagement and tediousness on top of an already aggravating system. At this point you lose the best part about the system (forcing you to change up your tactics) and instead gain an awkwardly cumbersome card collection mechanic that feels more frustrating than fun. You must now scour the world for new cards, trading and searching and salvaging for a collection of the right ones to nullify an increasingly unbearable system of law.<br /><br />Once you figure out how to cheese the system it gets a little better, but takes what little difficulty the game once had and just completely throws it out the window. When you can take a difficult level, use a card that makes attacking illegal, throw berserk on all your enemies and watch them all get thrown in prison, you're really not playing a game so much as abusing a mechanic. It takes away the strategy and challenge and replaces it with a completely laughable gimmick. Granted, most "boss" characters are immune to laws, but I'd rather the laws have been fleshed out a little better than having to just make difficult fights artificially difficult by letting bosses do whatever they well please without consequence.<br /><br />Certain areas of the game are "lawless" zones, where judges and laws don't reach, a nice reprieve from the oppressive restrictions. Of course, we can't have a good thing without a bad, which means that these areas also allow your characters to permanently die if not resurrected quickly. While I'm all for this kind of gameplay element in <span style="font-weight: bold;">Fire Emblem</span>, it feels strangely out of place in the <span style="font-weight: bold;">FFTA </span>world. Battles and strategies are different between the two games, and <span style="font-weight: bold;">FFTA </span>tends to be more high damage, high risk type playing because you (normally) have no fear of character death. While the game is not difficult enough to offer any sort of real threat to your characters, fear of permanence (and infrequency of necessity to go to these areas much) means you generally put up with the laws as a lesser of two evils and avoid the lawless areas as much as possible. You can always get your characters out of prison later for a few gil, but if they die permanently, well, that's not exactly something you can easily come back from.<br /><br />In the end, the entire law system ends up as a joke, offering no real rewards and, occasionally, punishments of cosmic proportions. You will more than likely find yourself turning off the game and restarting a battle instead of accepting your cruel fate, unless perhaps you love to see your hard work and strategy go down in flames at the hands of a merciless, bumbling AI. I can see where they were trying to go, but frankly that doesn't help when you're seconds away from throwing your GBA across the room because the main character just got a red card and it's "Game Over". It presents you with this strange rollercoaster ride of gameplay that seems to only get worse as you move forward - what is first simple and exciting quickly becomes overbearing and punishing, and when you finally have the ability to "counter" the laws it simply becomes a really tedious chore.<br /><br />It is sad that the law system manifests the way it does, because I'm convinced that it actually could solve one of the last remaining "great flaws" in the RPG/strategy genres. Needing to adapt your strategy and your team on a fight by fight basis would be a great improvement to an otherwise impossible to balance battle system. It's the reason that so many people like the more fluid character swaps in games like <span style="font-weight: bold;">FFX </span>or the <span style="font-weight: bold;">Breath of Fire</span> series, and implemented correctly it could do wonders for <span style="font-weight: bold;">FFTA</span>. It could really bring a new level of challenge and Tactics to the game and really push you to the limit. Unfortunately here, it does more harm than good.<br /><br />If you can put up with the law system, <span style="font-weight: bold;">FFTA </span>has enough content to keep you busy for quite some time, especially as you go for 100% completion. The jobs, numerous missions, secret characters and system link options give the game really long legs, especially for a portable title. Just don't expect the story to get you through, considering how simplistic and dumbed down the plot is, presumably to help lower the target audience age to better line up with the GBA's demographic. The characters are largely forgettable, unlikely to become true standouts in the series like Cloud or Kefka, the plot is barely even worth paying attention to and none of the side stories stand out or grab you like they did in the original <span style="font-weight: bold;">FFT</span>. None of that stopped me from completing the game twice over, though. Being an addictive, portable, pick-up-and-playable game makes it very easy to play in small 10-15 minute intervals over the course of several months. That is, as long as you make sure to pay attention to laws as you come back into battles.<br /><br />While it is certainly not the strongest product wielding the <span style="font-weight: bold;">Final Fantasy</span> name, <span style="font-weight: bold;">FFTA </span>still acted as proof of a repairing of relations between Square and Nintendo and set a fair amount of precedent for future titles and releases to come. The law and judge systems even ended up being used/referenced in other <span style="font-weight: bold;">Final Fantasy</span> titles, most notable <span style="font-weight: bold;">FFXII</span>. The basic system was there, they proved you could make an excellent tactical game work on a small, portable console. Square also showed that they were still willing to give players lots and lots of gameplay to chew on if they so chose. It's just difficult to out-and-out recommend this title. I'm capable of putting up with alot of frustrating nonsense in tactical games, in the same way that some people get a sense of accomplishment constantly dying in <span style="font-weight: bold;">Super Ghouls and Ghosts</span>, and I realize that not everyone will be willing to put up with the law system as I was.<br /><br />Seeing how it was marginally well received by critics and also sold relatively well, it's no surprise that they moved on to create another entry to the series...<br /><br />...which is why my next post (hopefully out sooner than this one, sorry) will be about the more recent sequel, <span style="font-weight: bold;">FFTA2</span>.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10849198565080158294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813246974673941322.post-70886103392429750082009-03-25T00:00:00.000-05:002009-03-25T11:03:45.825-05:00For Great JusticeI've already talked once about the '<span style="font-weight: bold;">Ace Attorney</span>' series (see <a href="http://gatechsavvy.blogspot.com/2008/04/of-court-cases-and-magical-appendages.html">this post</a>), so a summation of this review is quite simply "more of the same". If you liked any of the previous <span style="font-weight: bold;">Ace Attorney</span> games, this one is definitely worth investing in. If you didn't, if you've never played one, or if you're still interested in what I've got to say, please, continue reading.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Ace Attorney</span> got its start on the GBA in Japan with the <span style="font-weight: bold;">Phoenix Wright</span> series (although they don't call it that) but was never brought over to North America, presumably due to the high cost of translation and waning interest of the point and click adventure genre. With the introduction of the DS and the wave of popularity it was riding, Capcom saw fit to port the game over to the system since the touch screen capabilities basically screamed for it. When they did so they gave the game a chance in the NA market and it was such a hit that it sold out in stores after almost every shipment. This helped to revive the series and bring all 3 current games to the DS as ports, but also paved the way to 'reboot' the series and give it a new protagonist: enter Apollo Justice.<br /><br />While much of the game is set in new places and introduces new characters, you'll also find your fair share of familiar faces and scenarios as you work your way through each case. While the older games are not intimately tied together (i.e. you can play <span style="font-weight: bold;">Apollo Justice</span> as your first game without fear of being lost or confused) there's a strong enough connection that I would suggest that you go play through the <span style="font-weight: bold;">Phoenix Wright</span> series first. It's not enough of a reason to highly discourage someone from playing this first, though; you'll end up having just as much fun without spoiling *too* much from the earlier games should you decide to play them later.<br /><br />In the opening paragraph I mention that the game is "more of the same", and by and large this is a true statement. However, while <span style="font-weight: bold;">Apollo Justice</span> does play in the same manner as the original, the focus and difficulty is shifted enough to give each game its own unique feel even though gameplay is generally the same. The <span style="font-weight: bold;">Phoenix Wright</span> games tended to focus a large amount of time and story into the more 'detective' portions of the game, using items and information to break "Pysche-locks" on different characters who were witholding information or lying. The overall story, general investigation and plot twists largely occured around these events and set up the game to present court cases that, while they might have also included a few twists, were mostly a check to see if you could piece together the information in a (mostly) straightforward manner. You rarely 'died' in court because by the time you got there if you even linked a few things together you could put the rest in place before it required any serious commitment.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Apollo Justice</span>, however, takes this method and flips it almost completely on its head. Apollo's power isn't in seeing Psyche-Locks, but in "perceiving" nervousness or lying. Instead of having the story play out in the investigation phases, most will play out in the courtroom as you unravel the witness's lies and the reality of the situation starts to become more clear. This makes the investigation portions much less important, so they end up acting as a sort of exposition for the case or a plot device for finding new evidence that your characters wouldn't have thought to collect on the first pass. This makes the court room portions a bit more challenging and dangerous that the rest of the game is just a narrative for. Or it would be, anyway if the game were difficult enough.<br /><br />Perhaps <span style="font-weight: bold;">Apollo Justice</span>'s greatest flaw* is that the game plays more like an interactive novel than it does a true point and click adventure. Since the meat of the game occurs in the courtroom - where you know you have all the evidence and all the characters in place - a large number of the "challenges" pan out to be nothing more than fairly simple deductions or, at worst, determining the improbable by removing the impossible. The 'challenge' in the <span style="font-weight: bold;">Phoenix Wright</span> series occurred during the investigation portions, where you were never really sure if you had all the information and you could always be missing a key piece of evidence or have not talked to someone thoroughly. It is true that it did suffer from the occasional frustrating or seemingly illogical conclusion you had to draw, but it is not as though we are talking about <span style="font-weight: bold;">Myst</span> here.<br /><br />* <span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;">I feel somewhat ill-at-ease for pointing out that it is "too easy" because this is something that is largely open to personal interpretation. Adventure games are notoriously difficult to "tune" because you either give the puzzle away in an attempt to placate a frustrated customer or you create an entire section of bald gamers who have pulled their hair out trying to solve your impossible-to-interpret-without-a-PHD riddle (i.e. the aforementioned </span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:times new roman;font-size:85%;" >Myst</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;">). How many hints do you give? When do you give them? Are they so big that they trivialize the puzzle or do they help them think about the problem in a different way? Different players will approach the game from different angles; some may never stumble and others might not make it past the first case. While other genres have concrete values that can be tweaked to adjust difficulty - health, damage, speed, ammo, etc - adventure games do not. What was "an interactive novel" to me might be "an interactive </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:85%;" >Sherlock Holmes </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;">novel" to someone else. Others may have been turned off by the frustrations of the first games but love the pacing and challenge level in this one. Let personal experience - and not my own - determine how difficult the game is, I'm merely noting that the game is noticeably easier than its predecessors. </span></span><br /><br />Despite the change in difficulty, the game still delivers beautifully in most areas. The characters are all great and very fleshed out; even older familiar characters are given new roles or have changed significantly since the last installment. Each case is intriguing, and by the end they are all tied together in a very interesting way. The art is great and the 3d CG movies, while not amazing, are a nice touch. The writing is humorous and spot on for each character, only rarely feeling forced or uninspired. Even the gameplay itself is solid and offers a nice change of pace from the last 3 iterations. Actual use of the DS's functionality - mic, touch screen, etc - are especially welcome additions after being teased with the extra case from the first port. Of course, the game "suffers" from being one of the least replayable genres available, but it more than makes up for it by being a very solid, enjoyable first time experience.<br /><br />While the game is worth playing overall, it is important to note that unless the series starts to introducing some new life into the gameplay, it might not remain fresh enough to allow for 2 more <span style="font-weight: bold;">Apollo Justice</span> games. The ending promises some interesting changes in the future, so let's hope that they can take those ideas and run with them while maintaining the high level of story quality and humor we've come to expect. The "<span style="font-weight: bold;">Perfect Prosecutor</span>" spinoff that's coming up should also help add some much needed variety to this otherwise stagnant series. That being said, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Apollo Justice</span> is a fine addition to the series and comes highly recommended for fans of the <span style="font-weight: bold;">Phoenix Wright</span> series, or fans of detective point and click adventures as a whole.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10849198565080158294noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813246974673941322.post-81716371800045874182009-03-09T18:11:00.000-05:002009-03-09T17:45:10.205-05:00Dualing BanjosDespite single handedly bringing the video game industry back from the verge of death and helping to firmly entrench the 'console' into the world of gaming in the same space as the all mighty PC, Nintendo hasn't exactly always been on top. Beginning with the introduction of the N64 in the late 90's, a series of miscalculations on Nintendo's part left the company in a downward spiral that continued into the Gamecube days and saw the once mighty giant knocked down to 3rd place behind two new contenders, Sony and Microsoft.<br /><br />When you look at the N64's lifetime sales numbers and compare them to the Playstation 1, Nintendo sold only a third as many units as a company who had just released their first console. How does something like this happen? Was it the choice to stick with the more expensive and smaller storage cartridges over CDs? (Go read the wikipedia articles on the history of the CDi and the Playstation, by the way. Very interesting stuff) Lack of third party support? Poorly timed first party releases? The eventual explosion of the <span style="font-weight: bold;">Final Fantasy</span> series? It's hard to know for certian, but one thing we can be sure of is that people seemed to prefer the PS1 to the N64 almost 3:1.<br /><br />That's not to say, however, that the N64 was a total loss. While Nintendo may only have itself to blame for it's spectacular failures, it has equal right in taking the credit for their monumental successes. The N64 brought us several classics that will surely stand the test of time, many if not all of which were first or second party choices. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Ocarina of Time</span> is constantly tagged as one of, if not the, the greatest game(s) of all time. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Super Mario 64</span> gave the platformer life in 3D and developers today are still trying to surpass its greatness. Games like <span style="font-weight: bold;">Star Fox 64</span> and <span style="font-weight: bold;">F-Zero X</span> each took on new life in their 64 bit days and received quite the cult followings even if they were not spectacular critical or commercial successes like Zelda and Mario.<br /><br />The N64 era was also unique, though, because it was perhaps the first (and only) era where 2nd party developer Rare really showed what it could do. While Rare did have several 'cult' hits during the NES days (my personal favorites being <span style="font-weight: bold;">Snake Rattle 'n' Roll</span> and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Battletoads</span>) and some bigger hits on the SNES (<span style="font-weight: bold;">Donkey Kong Country</span> series, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Killer Instinct</span>), their N64 games are probably what they are most remembered for. Who doesn't remember the first time they played <span style="font-weight: bold;">Goldeneye </span>multiplayer, racing a pig in <span style="font-weight: bold;">Diddy Kong Racing</span>, playing counter-operative in <span style="font-weight: bold;">Perfect Dark</span> or blowing up buildings in <span style="font-weight: bold;">Blast Corps</span>? Even their more 'average' games - <span style="font-weight: bold;">Donkey Kong 64</span> - were fun and enjoyable despite their weaknesses.<br /><br />By now, of course, you've probably noticed the missing link to this puzzle (P.s. if you don't, read the post's title again for a hint). It is certainly a difficult call to make, but I believe if anything has been able to capture the magic and fun that is locked away deep inside <span style="font-weight: bold;">Super Mario 64</span>, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Banjo Kazooie</span> was it. Both are experiences in their own way and should not be missed, but while <span style="font-weight: bold;">Mario 64</span> is simply the application of a known 2D formula in a 3D world, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Banjo Kazooie</span> represents something completely new altogether. New characters, a new world, a variety of moves and abilities, unique locations and a large helping of cartoon humor really helps <span style="font-weight: bold;">Banjo Kazooie</span> not only stand out from <span style="font-weight: bold;">Mario 64</span>, but excel in its own way.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">---Banjo Kazooie---</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Banjo Kazooie</span> starts out like any other Mario game does - a female character has been kidnapped and it's up to our protagonist to save them! - but the stories couldn't possibly be any more different. Tooty, Banjo's sister, is taken by the evil witch Gruntilda (who only speaks in rhymes, mind you) because she is the 'fairest' and it is Gruntilda's wish to have Tooty's beauty as her own. As you start out you know the basics of platforming (jumping) but hidden within many of the worlds that you visit are new abilities that you can learn to increase your arsenal and tackle new challenges. Things like flight, invulnerability, shooting eggs, double jumping and walking up steep ramps help to break the usual tediousness associated with platforming (jump to win!) and adds quite a bit of variety to the gameplay.<br /><br />At its core is your standard Mario 64 inspired platformer, complete with multiple worlds featuring various exotic locales (Gobi's Desert, Freezeasy Peak, Mad Monster Mansion, etc and so forth), tons upon tons of items to collect, plenty of pesky platforming perils (plus puzzles!), and endless supply of unique and entertaining enemies, health and lives and bears, oh my! Worlds are generally static levels that you explore all at once (in Mario 64, the level could change substantially depending upon which star you were seeking), allowing you freedom to work on multiple goals simultaneously without having to exit/re-enter after each mission. +1 for convenience.<br /><br />Notes are the 'common currency' and 100 are strewn about in each level, but instead of being used for health and extra lives (or a 100 coin star) they are used to unlock deeper areas of Gruntilda's lair. Jiggies, aka Jigsaw Pieces, allow you to open new worlds, which means that you require both jigsaw pieces and notes to make it to the final showdown with Gruntilda. This may seem a little strange or even perhaps annoying, but I think it is a clever idea to require both a bit of exploration and a bit of platforming before you're allowed to move on to the next area. Since you will trip over notes left and right on your quest for each world's many jiggies, it is highly unlikely you will even need to go out of your way to collect enough to advance. Each world also has 5 Jinjo's for you to find, and while their inclusion in the banjo universe might seem strange or even bizarre at first - then again, what isn't - I assure you that they rightfully earn their place by story's end. Rare has taken collection to a whole new level and has completely gone all out to make each nook and cranny of the levels filled to the brim with items. It is even an inside joke in their future games that all platformers must involve "pointless collection mechanics". For those of you who are born completionists and love collecting, exploring and achieving, you just struck <span style="font-style: italic;">gold</span>. Or maybe oil. Actually, you struck <span style="font-style: italic;">goldoil</span><span style="font-style: italic;">.</span><br /><br />I've already touched on Banjo and Kazooie's vast array of useful abilities, but something that deserves its own special mention is that in many levels you can visit Mumbo Jumbo (resident Shaman) and have him transform you into something. Each level has it's own transformation, most of which are both necessary for completion of the level and hilarious. Examples would be the termite (climb up really steep walls), bumble bee (fly, and mingle with the honey bees who are otherwise aggressive towards bears), and even a pumpkin (who is small, bouncy... and probably delicious). You don't get a whole lot of use out of them and having to go back and forth to Mumbo's hut is sometimes aggravating (see: Mad Monster Mansion) but overall it adds just another layer of diversity to and already impressive list of gameplay features. Every now and then, Mumbo will accidentally turn you into a more 'novelty' form and is always willing to offer up humorous one-liners after he has completed his magic. Just one of the many area's that Rare's humor really adds to the atmosphere of the game.<br /><br />If you have the game memorized backwards and forwards it might not take you long to beat it - 6 hours maybe, assuming you picked up just enough to unlock Gruntilda - but like Mario 64 the real length of the game is in being as OCD as possible and running around collecting everything. Notes, Jinjos, Jiggies, honeycomb pieces. A good 20 hours or more for those in unfamiliar territory, maybe 10-12 if you're doggedly determined and wielding a gamefaq's sheet. Completing the game at 100% Jiggies (and notes, maybe? I always did it anyway) will give you a sneak peek at some of the secrets that lay hidden deep within the game, tucked away for over 10 years under the joke that we all know as 'Stop 'n' Swop'. Oh, sure, now it actually does something and has meaning but to those of us who grew up not knowing, it was perhaps one of the more cruel failings of the series, especially considering how much coverage it received. They finally added it in with <span style="font-weight: bold;">Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts</span>, but 10 years of hype and anticipation means that the only thing they could possibly do with it was disappoint (which it certainly did, by and large). Maybe when they finally finish the port of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Banjo-Tooie</span>, we'll see what Stop 'n' Swap was really supposed to do.<br /><br />Overall, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Banjo Kazooie</span> is one of those games that made the N64 almost impossible to live without, despite the system's misgivings and general lack of third party support. If you were willing to accept original ideas and didn't need your platformer's main character to be an overweight red plumber to enjoy it, the game offered more in terms of innovation and design than perhaps even <span style="font-weight: bold;">Mario 64</span> did. It gave Rare yet another successful franchise and paved the way for sequels (<span style="font-weight: bold;">Banjo-Tooie</span>), character crossovers (<span style="font-weight: bold;">Diddy Kong Racing</span>), GBA releases (<span style="font-weight: bold;">Banjo Kazooie GBA</span> and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Banjo Pilot</span>), ports (<span style="font-weight: bold;">Banjo Kazooie</span> on XBLA) and last but not least... reboots (<span style="font-weight: bold;">Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts</span>). The game was incredible and certainly worth the $15 price tag on the XBLA, assuming you don't have an N64 somewhere you could dust off. The new high res textures and actually implemented Stop 'n' Swop feature are enough reason to purchase it again anyway. I'm not one to try and reward companies for taking older games and attempting to make money off of them again simply by repackaging them and placing them back onto the market in a newer format, but with a game as good as Banjo Kazooie - with new features and textures to boot - I'm willing to make an exception.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">--- Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts ---</span><br /><br />So when Rare announced a new Banjo Kazooie for the Xbox 360, I was both excited and worried. Since its split with Nintendo and purchase by Microsoft, Rare has not been capable of creating the same caliber of product that it is known and loved for (some say this started during the <span style="font-weight: bold;">Star Fox Adventures </span>development, too, as it wasn't exactly received well). Which is sad, because Rare seems to have been punished unfairly for attempting new things and creating new IPs (<span style="font-weight: bold;">Grabbed by the Ghoulies</span>, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Kameo</span>, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Viva Pinata</span>), although their poor attempts at ports (<span style="font-weight: bold;">Conker: Live and Reloaded</span>) and buggy launch titles that are prequels of their beloved classics (<span style="font-weight: bold;">Perfect Dark Zero</span>) didn't help their reputation at all. Could the company overcome its recent missteps and create something worthy of the Banjo-Kazooie name, or would it turn into another disappointing continuation of another one of their once beloved franchise? While the former may not have happened as much as one would like, I would not call the game a failure by any means.<br /><br />While essentially a 'platformer' at heart, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Nuts and Bolts</span> is unique in that most tasks are performed not through jumping, but through the use of vehicles. If you limit the term 'platformer' to being a game entirely dedicated to jumping and the timing thereof, then no, this is not a platformer... but neither is, say, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Mario 64</span>. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Mario 64</span> also included new elements like swimming, flying and boss battles to provide their own unique challenges different from - yet still similar to - jumping. Basic platforming is still in <span style="font-weight: bold;">Nuts and Bolts</span>, but the usefulness of this is mostly limited to note collection within the hub world 'Showdown Town' as most challenges require the use of some type of vehicle. You may not be solving challenges exclusively with jumping, but performing tasks with a certain degree of precision and timing is the foundation of the game and is the most obvious reason you can call it a 'platformer'.<br /><br />It makes more sense with an explanation of gameplay. The essence of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Nuts and Bolts</span> is that you create and use vehicles to perform a variety of different tasks with a number of constraints. This can include things like time limits, following a certain path, racing other characters or vehicle choice restrictions. Overall the game is a very large mixture of different playstyles and environments, ranging from on-rail shooters, flying planes, racing boats or item collection and transportation. The real beauty is that many (if not all) challenges have more than one unique solution so instead of being forced to perform a given task in a specific way you can instead find clever ways to solve the problem using creative or 'out of the box' solutions. Do you need to heat up an egg to make an omelet? You can create a vehicle that carries the egg to a nearby volcano or you come back later and use the flamethrower to whip something up on the spot. Trying to throw basketballs into a hoop? You may find it easier to bring the hoop to the ball.<br /><br />The nicest thing about the vehicle creation system, however, is that each part you use has an actual impact on performance and is not merely a cosmetic difference. My biggest disappointment with <span style="font-weight: bold;">Spore </span>was actually how neutered the creature creator felt once you understood how it worked. 'Stacking' items onto a creature would not increase that item's power, so there was no reason to add more than 1 of anything because the only difference was the aesthetic look. Having six level 1 claws actually made your creature less dangerous than having one level 5 claw because you would be limited to a level 1 attack. This was very foolish for several reasons:<br /><br />1) Adding extra units still ate up 'DNA' units, so you were essentially paying a hefty price for cosmetic features.<br />2) This also meant that a creature could be level 5 in every category if you were willing to create it in such a way that it only needed 1 of any item (1 foot, 1 claw, 1 mouth, etc). This meant that creativity and uniqueness was punished by being inferior to ones that were built solely to exploit the DNA available to them.<br />3) Creatures had hard caps that could not be exceeded, going against the basic premise of the system. You couldn't create a vicious killing machine that would fight his way through all problems and have no social skills or speed whatsoever, because there was no point. It offered no benefits because you couldn't stack items to gain additional benefits at the cost of others.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Nuts and Bolts</span> solves this problem by allowing additive stacking to actually confer a benefit. Using 2 small fuel tanks will give you more fuel than just 1. Using 5 small engines will go faster than using 1 medium engine. If you have a large engine but just want a bit more power you can add a small one. You can add as many weapons and ammo boxes as you prefer to make it look like something out of the <span style="font-weight: bold;">Twisted Metal</span> series and it will definitely kick the pants off of someone with just a puny egg shooter. Basically, every change you make will have some affect on the vehicle's performance and when you are spending time customizing and fine tuning your own creations, that means a lot. It not only gives your work a greater sense of purpose but also encourages you to finely tweak everything to get the best performance, making the creator a much more integral part of the game than just 'eh, let's throw something together real quick and be doe with it".<br /><br />Which is good, because each task you complete is given a sort of 'grading' based on the limits given. You can fail (obviously), do OK and receive notes (currency in the game to buy new parts and blueprints), do well and receive a jiggy (unlock new worlds and ultimately the boss) or do very well and receive a trophy (4 trophies = another jiggy, not very creative I know). As an example, timed events tend to reward you for doing more of something in the given time, like collecting more items or killing more enemies. Another example would be that if your goal is to perform a specific task, you will be rewarded for completing it in a faster time. Since you do not need the maximum number of jiggies to beat the last boss (in fact you need just over half), you are free to skip tasks that are aggravating or prove to be more difficult. This gives you plenty of choices on how to move forward, allows you to play challenges you prefer or ones that you've already built vehicles for and even come back later to do something when you've gotten better vehicle parts or newer items to use. The only exception to this rule is Grunty battles, which you need to get specific parts to open new areas in Showdown town. Overall, this non-linearity actually helps to prevent you from feeling bogged down or stuck while rewarding creativity, ingenuity and platforming.<br /><br />Unfortunately, you must approach <span style="font-weight: bold;">Nuts and Bolts</span> with a very accepting attitude for the first hour or so because the beginning of the game is very tedious and limited. You start out with a tiny number of parts to work with and most early challenges (beyond simple "tutorial" ones) will be frustrating to complete, especially if you are going for Trophies. Early vehicles are about as sturdy as an egg, handle about as poorly as wet soap and go as fast as a sloth but, over time, you can really start making some nice contraptions. As you earn money, collect your first few jiggies and open up new areas you will slowly unlock new parts and blueprints that beef up the vehicle editor. If you can push yourself past the initial 'it's impossible to drive these vehicles' phase and start to customize your own, the fun will really start to kick in and the rest of the game will be great. Unfortunately for Rare, demos are short and attention spans are even shorter, but make sure you give this game just a bit more time than normal before throwing it to the dogs.<br /><br />While achievements normally do an excellent job of extending the life of a game you enjoy, I found this especially true for <span style="font-weight: bold;">Nuts and Bolts</span>. They are very well spaced out over the course of the game, meaning that usually when you sit down to play you can earn an achievement or two before you're finished for the night. This is good because it gives you small goals to aim for outside of the 'real' game and also rewards you for going above and beyond (earning trophies), being a completionist (collect every jiggy) or doing some of the other unique things available in the game like Klungo's Arcade. Speaking of which, try not to let Rare's terrible sense of humor get in the way of enjoying the otherwise delicious 2d platformer minigame tucked away there. Sorry guys, but the "oh sorry I thought I fixed that bug here let me restart the whole level for you" isn't funny with you're constantly dying and were doing well for once.<br /><br />While the singleplayer is nice, the multiplayer could use a bit of work. Online matchmaking generally takes forever, often times just outright fails and even if you <span style="font-style: italic;">do</span> get into a game teams will be unevenly split, occasionally punishingly so (i.e. 5v2). Custom vehicle matches would be fun except there is not a way to determine the 'class' of a vehicle (i.e. is it using early game parts or is it decked out in all the super items?) so unless you've 100%'d the game and really focused on building the perfect vehicle for a specific course you can almost be assured to lose to someone half as good as you rocketing around the arena with 4 super jets. "Log's choice", where everyone uses the same pre-built machines, is better but they aren't tuned to handle as well as you'd like and cannot be customized... which is a large selling point for the game. If the audience was large enough they could do interesting things like have vehicle 'classes', where you could race against vehicles with similar sizes or part quality, but I think if you fractured the online community any more than it already is you'd never get into a game. Local multiplayer shows more promise, but that would require finding 3 other people like yourself willing to take the time to make custom vehicles and race them against you. Pretty heavy setup cost for a multiplayer game.<br /><br />Despite my initial dissatisfaction with <span style="font-weight: bold;">Nuts and Bolts</span> not being a traditional platformer, the vehicle customization and gameplay eventually won me over (even though the inside jokes about losing their moves stung a little). I went on to complete the game as much as possible, leaving only multiplayer achievements undone due it being almost impossible to get into a game, let alone win it. As long as you are willing to give the game a chance, it will provide you with dozens of hours of vehicle buildin', witch shootin', jiggy collectin' fun that is as unique and entertaining as you are willing to invest your time and creativity into each vehicle. It may not be the instant-classic that it's predecessor was, but at $40 or less <span style="font-weight: bold;">Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts</span> is quite the deal.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10849198565080158294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813246974673941322.post-48681503317437855342009-02-17T20:00:00.000-06:002009-02-17T20:56:11.141-06:00Bring on the ApocolypseBetter known in Japan as "It's a Wonderful World", <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">The World Ends With You</span> (from now on abbreviated at <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">TWEWY</span>) is, to me, hands down the biggest and best surprise game that came out of the 2008 calendar year. In a market super saturated with sequels, prequels, spin-offs and 'rubber-stamp' genre copying, <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">TWEWY </span>stands tall above the rest as a unique and thoroughly refreshing experience that is prime for... well, creating sequels, prequels and spinoffs.<br /><br />For those not 'in the know', <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">TWEWY </span>is a Japanese Role Playing Game (aka JRPG) that is absolutely anything but a JRPG. It remains true to the essence of the genre while taking it to new and exciting places. How? Here's a small list of general requirements to be listed as a JRPG:<br /><br />- Fantasy setting (small minority go "sci-fi"-esque or at least show off technology of some kind, see FFVII/FFVIII, Star Ocean, Xenogears, etc)<br />- Linear gameplay/story<br />- 1 man/team bent on saving the entire world<br />- Turn based combat<br />- Random battles<br />- Level Grinding<br />- Stats are generally HP/Mana<br />- Has the words "<span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Final Fantasy</span>" or "<span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Dragon Quest</span>" in the title, followed by a number<br /><br />Think back to all the JRPGs you've played recently, assuming you have at all. While it may not fit all of these descriptions, it is very likely that most of them still apply. While the genre has taken it's fair share of advances and strides in recent years (<span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Eternal Sonata</span><span style="font-size:0;">'s</span> uqinue battle system, <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">FFXII</span>'s 'mmo-lite' feel, <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Kingdom Heart</span>'s emphasis on action instead of turns), many people still clamor and call for 'old school' RPGs and many companies still do well making them (Mistwalker and Square-Enix).<br /><br />Even for the 'kings of JRPG', Square-Enix, creating a new RPG that is not a <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Final Fantasy</span> or a <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Dragon Quest</span> is something that is very risky. Customer loyalty and awareness of these brands are very high, and the customers who buy these products are very strict on what they like in their games and how they like it presented. For many people, they last JRPG they played or even cared about was <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Final Fantasy XII</span>, and many did not like how much it differed from traditional turn based battles. And despite 3 whole years of game releases since, nothing has garnered more media and attention than it's direct sequel, <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">FFXIII</span>. What have you heard more about, and which are you generally more excited for? <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Star Ocean IV</span>, <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Last Remnant</span>, <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Infinite Undiscovery</span>, or <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">FFXIII</span>? They are all Square-Enix properties, but I'm pretty sure the numbers would stack decidely in the favore of <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">FFXIII</span>.<br /><br />When you can't get even your own game to sell without the '<span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Final Fantasy</span>' title, you start doing clever things like making quick sequels (<span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">FFX-2</span>), re-releases (<span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">FFI-VI</span>), or even remakes (<span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">FFIII/FFIV</span>). If worse comes to worse, you take a new idea and just try to associate it in some way with your 'hot' product and go for sales-by-association through spin-offs (<span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">FFXII: Revenant Wings</span>, <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">FFVII: Crisis Core</span>). This allows you the freedom to explore other genres, types, and stories but still leaves you tethered to specific characters, an already-created world, and publicly known (and often discussed to the finest detail) cannon.<br /><br />This is part industry, part consumer and just part normal business. <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Final Fantasy</span> and <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Dragon Quest</span> are more than likely the best staffed, receive the most talented development and are given a chance to be truly polished and shine with gameplay that people are familiar with and willing to accept that are hyped over time. As such, there is more coverage, people are aware of what they are getting into and are already in a specific state of mind when they play the game. This also, of course, means that many consumers (and some journalists) will give the game a 'pass' or think it is better simply because of the name.<br /><br />Meanwhile, great games like <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Blue Dragon</span>, <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Lost Odyssey</span>, <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Eternal Sonata</span> and others may stick to the formula or have equally high production values but struggle to sell well or reach critical acclaim because, knowingly or not, they are constantly being compared verses <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">FF</span> and <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">DQ</span>. Just as an example, the IGN review for <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Lost Odyssey</span> mentions '<span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Final Fantasy</span>' 4 times within the context of the review - twice because of the people associated with creating the games, once comparing the music, and again comparing gameplay elements. Even my own personal reviews of games make mention of these for comparison, although I try to judge each game on it's own merits. Unfortunately, these behemoths are no longer just games, they have become almost de facto standards in the genre to which all other entries are compared regardless of their differences. I am convinced that many good games fail to meet their potential sales purely because of their title and , inversely, many underperforming titles are given large boosts to sales simply because of their name. Why?<br /><br />Because most people probably haven't even heard of these 'other' games, don't care about them, and never bother to research or try them. There's no hype or huge build up surrounding them, so reviews are not skewed in positive directions by overzealous reviewers trying to make a point (looking at you, <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">GTAIV </span>and <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">MGS4</span>) which only makes comparisons to the titans seem worse. And while people always complain about sequels and how they wish there were more 'new IPs' and all sorts of other "I'm hip and going against the man and against popular opinion because I'm an individual and not a sheep" beliefs, the fact that sequels sell so well 1) tells us that most people want sequels, 2) tells <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">developers </span>'hey, just make more sequels', and 3) often times results from the fact that people are unwilling to take risks on new IPs that have not been 'proven franchises'. In other words, they will talk the talk but will not walk the walk. I find it even more hilarious that these same journalists and gamers who actively complain about the lack of new IPs are usually the ones immediately asking the "when can we expect the sequel?" question when a new IP does do well. Inconsistent much?<br /><br />Of course this is not unique to games. The same is true of most entertainment media - movies, books, television, music and games all share similar fates to some extent.<br /><br />While I harp on them quite alot for their constant repackaging their old games and spinning out of control with sequels and spinoffs, Square-Enix does often try to do new things it couldn't normally do otherwise. It doesn't always work (see: critical and sales bombs <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Infinite Undiscovery</span> and <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">The Last Remnant</span>, although I hope to give those two a fair shake at some point in the future, as this could just be more 'it's not <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Final Fantasy</span>' mentality), but every now and then you'll get a diamond in the rough that actually outshines even the best that <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">FF</span>'s and <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">DQ</span>'s have to offer. For a company that could easily rest on its laurels and still make a pretty good living, it's nice to see Square-Enix takes chances like this and create great games in the process. It is not only good for the consumer and the industry to have a little variety, but it helps to flex the power of the genre and really push it forward into new and different places. Just think: if Square wasn't willing to take any risks, we wouldn't have ever been graced with the presense of <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Chrono Trigger</span>, arguably one of the best RPGs of all time.<br /><br />This is one of the main things that makes <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">TWEWY </span>so good; being so unique and different from anything else the JRPG genre has had to offer in some time. Of the JRPG 'usual' suspects (see list above), quite possibly the only one you can attribute to this game is being linear, but other than that the game really takes it's own direction and blazes a trail that is new and different from just about any other RPGs I've played. Let's analzye, shall we?<br /><br /><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">- Fantasy setting (small minority go "sci-fi"-esque or at least show off technology of some kind, see FFVII/FFVIII, Star Ocean, Xenogears, etc)</span><br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">TWEWY </span>draws heavily from modern day japan - the completely real Shibuya district in Tokyo - and it shows in culture, fashion, music and presentation. Sure, the game's graphics aren't 'realistic' and are instead highly stylized but it is not your usual JRPG setting by any means. As someone who has spent most of his life equipping his characters with guns and swords, though, moving on to pins and 'normal' clothes was a breath of fresh air. Getting a highly stylized anime world that actively reflects a specific district in Japan? That's just icing on the cake.<br /><br /><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">- 1 man/team bent on saving the entire world</span><br /><br />It's still one man and his team, but it's not 'the world' and it focuses much more on small character parts and character interaction and development. It doesn't break this mold completely (you still end up saving stuff) but it's a unique twist on a tired plot device. Some RPG's try to have weird stories and absurd plot twists just for the sake of having them, but <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">TWEWY </span>creates one that is unique and interesting without being over ridiculous.<br /><br /><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">- Turn based combat</span><br /><br />Hardly. You play the game in real time, and it's none of this 'psuedo' real time either. It's full throttle, always under fire with a dozen different things to pay attention to. The battle system does have one major drawback; in order to perfect it you have to be INCREDIBLY good and dedicated. The learning curve for the game's battle system is so steep that it even gives you computer AI to help you manage 1/2 of the entire battle system so you can focus on the other half. As you play more and get used to your bottom screen's pins, you can always give your try and managing both screens at once - although I might suggest you keep some advil handy as you work on stressing your brain to the limit keeping track of everything that's going on.<br /><br />Despite it's learning difficulty, it helps that the gameplay revolves around more than just mashing the 'a' button most of the time. You have to - simultaneously, mind you - manage blowing/talking into the mic, pressing the screen, dragging the screen, tapping the screen, pushing buttons in specific combinations that constantly change, all while dodging enemy fire and watching your abilities' cooldowns and trying to keep your group combo going. The game is also unique in that you can swap out your abilities to cater to things that you prefer or that you seem to be better at. Don't like blowing into the mic? Don't use that pin. Getting hit too much? Throw up a heal pin. Want to just burn your enemies down as fast as possible? Stack your deck with pain. You can even keep several 'premade' decks so if you want one to level, one for boss fights and one to complete your pin collection, you don't have to be constantly swapping pins in and out. For many, the battle system's high level of involvement may be a turn off, but for those who complain about their RPG's being 'easy' and just mash 'A' until they've won, this game is for you. I must warn you though, after your first few battles you may want to go <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">cry</span>.<br /><br /><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">- Random battles</span><br /><br />Aside from a few scripted events (bosses, tutorials, blocks, etc) the game is yours to control. Want to move the story forward? Sure. Explore a little? No problem. Level up? Grab groups of enemies and increase your chain for better results. Test out new pins? Pick out the weaklings. You can even scale your level down to increase the challenge and reward yourself with more PP (for your pins) if you so desire. It's all about choice. How great is that?<br /><br /><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">- Level Grinding</span><br /><br />As long as you take some level of interest in the battles and fight a few times outside of what's forced in the story, you shouldn't have much of a problem staying ahead of the level curve. If you don't like the battle system so much you're skipping as much of it as possible, well, why are you even still playing the game? Harder battles can be made easier with proper pin selection, and taking some time out to level your really good pins goes a long way in making you more powerful.<br /><br /><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">- Stats are generally HP/Mana</span><br /><br />You still have HP, but it's shared between both characters so if you're really good with one screen, you have some more breathing room on the other. No 'mana' to speak of, but some stronger pins only have a certian number of uses per battle or have a set amount of time to recover after you've used them all, so watching what pins you are using and making sure you are optimizing your battle order, while not imperative, can be deadly in the right hands.<br /><br /><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">- Has the words "</span><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-STYLE: italic">Final Fantasy</span><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">" or "</span><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-STYLE: italic">Dragon Quest</span><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">" in the title</span><br /><br />It may have 'Square-Enix' on the box, but as you've seen, this is anything BUT you're standard RPG. From the wacky beginning to the epic ending, the game will keep you jamming, running, slamming and fighting for your life. The game may take you upwards of 40 hours just for the 'main course', but after the second or third night of being so caught up in it that you forget what time it is, the ending may seem like it comes all too soon. Bonus side items like Tin Pin Slammer, wifi connectivity, delivng deeper in the story and the 'gotta collect them all!' mentality behind pin collection are sure to keep you playing for weeks and weeks after you tear through the story. It is the game that keeps on giving, one that is easy to pick up and exceptionally difficult to master, that rewards you for challenging yourself and gives you a reason to go back and play through the game again. For those of us who are more 'goal' oriented, the extras at the end will be especially tempting as they will challenge you to defeat newer, harder bosses or accomplish goals in different ways to unlock more about the game and the world in it.<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">TWEWY </span>has shown us that Square Enix still has what it takes to be an innovator, to grab us hook line and sinker and not let go. And this was from a game no one had ever heard much of, and that many people thought they couldn't care less about. If you whine about an industry that relies too much on sequels and not enough on new and creative IP's, it is your duty to purchase this game. If you're still waiting for <strong>FFXIII</strong> and it's half dozen different different releases there is still plenty for you to enjoy here. If you are an RPG veteran and are looking for something new to play and are willing to give something unique and different and try, what are you waiting for? Trust me, whatever is the case, you'll be all the better for it, and I'm sure you'll thank me later. Just hurry, I won't stand for anyone being too zeta slow!Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10849198565080158294noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813246974673941322.post-32976302362334424052009-01-06T17:45:00.000-06:002009-01-06T17:49:13.337-06:00Bioshock actually shocks meI'm going to be honest here; when the game first came out, I ignored it. To me it was just another FPS in an already crowded, bloated and generally boring market of games aimed at kids with twitch fingers and appetites for violence and mindless action. I've gone on record stating many times that just about the only FPS I play anymore is the <span style="font-weight: bold;">Half Life</span> series, to due it's excellent pacing, puzzles, story, characters and overall polish. When <span style="font-weight: bold;">Halo 3</span> came out - one of the biggest FPS releases since, well, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Halo 2</span> - I only played the last 2 levels because I happened to be at a friends' house when they were finishing it on 4 player. I didn't even play through the whole thing until after a friend in Austin purchased the game and wanted someone to play co-op split screen with. That's right, I don't even <span style="font-style: italic;">own </span>it. And while I do own <span style="font-weight: bold;">Team Fortress 2</span> - a game I actually rather enjoy - I'm just not good enough or interested enough to keep playing an FPS for more than a few days.<br /><br />Of course, then Bioshock exploded. It was given all sorts of awards and lauded as an incredible, "not to be missed" game. I chalked this up to those who like to talk up games on their favorite system which are not on other, rival systems (even though it is now). I'd heard more hype about <span style="font-weight: bold;">Halo 3</span> and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Call of Duty 4</span> and was not rivited by either, what could this no-name offshoot offer me that these two behemoths did not?<br /><br />When I received <span style="font-weight: bold;">Bioshock </span>for my birthday, then, I was somewhat surprised. I hadn't really mentioned it to anyone, but I suppose when you have a teenager in the family making suggestions on what he'd like to buy someone who plays games, he knows which ones are the big names. After a few months of sitting on the shelves, I took it down to give it a whirl (as a diversion for all the JRPGs I had just finished playing), and I must once again admit that I was terribly, horribly wrong. I seem to be doing this alot lately.<br /><br />My 'problem' with most FPS's is that they are more well suited for quick-fingered, aggressive thrill seekers than strategic, tactical min/maxers like myself. There's no real numbers, reason, logic or strategy, just run here, shoot stuff, run there, shoot more stuff. Most games that I play (and most enjoy) are turn based and involves lots of numbers, elements, variables, options and calculating. I know that in many FPS's enemies have 'weaknesses' or whatever and that you can master weapons and enemies just as well with brain as with brawn, but overall the genre is composed more of brute force combined with trial and error than not. And while this may, in many respects, be true of the basic core of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Bioshock</span>, it is hidden and masked so well that it really did not bother or frustrate me as much as normal.<br /><br />That may be, of course, because <span style="font-weight: bold;">Bioshock </span>is not 'just' and FPS. It is an <span style="font-style: italic;">experience</span>, a world and narrative so rich and engrossing that you perhaps forget yourself in it. It starts off with an intriguing enough beginning, which is a breath of fresh air compared to most "lone man saving the world from destruction" story so typical to the genre (even my beloved <span style="font-weight: bold;">Half Life</span> series!). Your plane crash lands and you find yourself in an underwater city, surrounded by sociopaths and lunatics. At this point you are not trying to save anything but <span style="font-style: italic;">yourself</span>, and not only is it a nice change of pace from the norm but also sets itself up well to feed into the rest of the story.<br /><br />I'll do you a favor and not talk about the story in great detail from here on out, because to do so would ruin pretty much everything that makes the game what it is. Suffice it to say that while you may find the plot predictable you still will not expect it, while you may see characters as shallow you will discover them to be quite deep, and while the place may seem droll and lifeless you'll find plenty of times that you wish it were. The environments suffer from the usual 'too realistic ' nonsense found in most games these days, dark with slightly varying shades of brown and grey, but there is some variety and it all fits surprisingly well together with the theme and atmosphere of the game. Most of the time you will be too busy lost in the incredibly rich atmosphere or frantically running away from that pissed off big daddy to notice (or care) about nit picky things like that anyway. It looks <span style="font-style: italic;">nice </span>and does the game service, in this case that's more than enough.<br /><br />The number of different 'plasmids' (body altering chemicals) you can make and weapons you can weild keeps most of the combat interesting and gives you strategy and choice when moving forward in the world. Do you take the upgraded shotgun to help with the big daddies or upgrade your pistol to help against splicers? Do you take the hacker plasmids that help against turrets and cameras or do you need the extra health to survive all the enemies? It helps to customize the game in ways not normally seen in shooters and gives an otherwise linear experience a bit more freedom and choice. It also means that you can make the game more stealthy (camo and quiet footsteps combined with a few good wrench-based beatings) or more twitchy (big guns with huge clips and giant explosives) so it caters to your playstyle if you play your cards right. It won't be as tactiacl as <span style="font-weight: bold;">Metal Gear </span>nor as run and gun as <span style="font-weight: bold;">Halo </span>but it finds a happy medium and gives you the power to play it as you like.<br /><br />Now a days, most shooters are very short single player experiences and rely on online play to keep you interested (and to keep you from turning around and selling it back to Gamestop). To compare, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Halo 3</span> took me a paltry 6 hours to beat, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Call of Duty 4</span> clocked in at a slightly more impressive 8. Multiplayer? Barely touched either, didn't care. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Bioshock </span>has NO multiplayer and doesn't even have co-op (on the 360 anyway) but the 'main' game took me nearly 20 hours to play through. This is not some halfway done attempt at single player to put a bullet point on the box of a mostly multiplayer focused game. It will take you a few days to beat (or, if you go at my pace, about a month) and won't leave you feeling like you were shortchanged. Aside from a *few* uses of the feindishly evil backtracking parts (i.e. make the game longer on the cheap), it's new and interesting at every turn and, assuming you can keep going without being creeped out by the characters and story, keeps you coming back for me. For those who have mastered the game I'm sure you can plow through it faster, but harder difficulty settings and special 'survivor' modes on the PS3 add even more to its length and replayability.<br /><br />It's not <span style="font-style: italic;">all </span>roses, of course, but it's hard to think of many things that are actually "bad" about this game. Hacking is cool at first but when every room has 2 cameras, 3 turrets, 4 vendors and a safe it gets old REALLY fast. On some of the easier difficulty levels you will probably end up just buying autohacks, buying them out, destroying them, or just plain ignoring them. It's not that the minigame itself is poorly designed (it's actually quite fun when it becomes semi-challenging), it's the fact that you are spending 30 minutes clearing a room of hackable things only to have to do it all over again 5 minutes later that it starts to get annoying. If you do enough research you can auto hack some of them by that point it's too little too late and a drop in the bucket compared to what you've done so far.... and what you have left that still has to be done. I can only imagine how much more annoying it must be on the harder difficulties, where you don't have the cash to burn or the ammo to waste on these foolish things.<br /><br />Speaking of bots and cameras, some of them are in the weirdest or most annoying places - often to disasterous (or frustrating) consequences. I found myself the unwanted recepient of a bot swarm a few too many times playing through the game, usually because I stepped around some corner and directly into the line of sight of a camera that I had no idea was there, only to be completely out of luck. Add the fact that you must then run to some 'security bot deactivate' switch - which could be so far away from your current position that you might as well just fight them off and wait it out - equals to a minute of annoying, flying mechanical demons that like to come from nowhere and aren't very happy with you. Usually it's not a problem - cameras give off light that's pretty easy to see as it moves along the otherwise dark and uninteresting metallic grey interior - but when you think you are being careful or cautious and STILL get caught it's no longer a gameplay mechanic, it's now a <span style="font-style: italic;">frustration </span>mechanic. Considering the list of good things about this title, though, these are really just some unfair nit-pickings and are no reason whatsoever to not give this game a fair shake.<br /><br />Overall, the one thing you can say about the game is that it <span style="font-style: italic;">delivers</span>. It took the single player aspect of the first person shooter, gave it a unique twist, threw in and incredible story and a very well designed locale and just lets you go to town. It even gives you a fair amount of freedom for a game that is otherwise a purely linear experience. It may not play or even handle any different than your normal FPS, but honestly that is not the genre's problem. It doesn't need a new gimmick, it needs people with decent ideas and the ability to deliver them. Bioshock may only be good because it is a refreshing change in an otherwise stale and overharvested genre, but sometimes that's all it takes to make a masterpiece. And believe me when I say.... they <span style="font-style: italic;">have</span>.<br /><br />---<br /><br />With Christmas comes new games, and that means more things to review. I have 10+ games practically unopened and several more in various states of completion, so I expect this list to grow MUCH faster than I can possibly keep up with it. Well, than I <span style="font-style: italic;">choose </span>to keep up with it, anyway. At least the first half of this year will cool off a bit, I'm not even really looking foward to anything (that I know of) until <span style="font-weight: bold;">Resident Evil 5</span> hits in march, which gives me a good bit of time to work through my back catalogue.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Currently playing:</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">WoW:WotLK (PC)</span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice (DS)</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Professor Layton and the Curious Villiage (DS)</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;">Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn (Wii)</span><br /><span style="font-size:100%;">Lost Odyssey (360)<br />Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts (360)<br />Fable II (360)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >What should be next (no particular order):</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The World Ends With You (DS)</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (DS)</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Spore (PC)</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced 2 (DS)</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Rock Band 2 (360)</span><br />Banjo Kazooie (XBLA)Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10849198565080158294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813246974673941322.post-88667269837860604182008-12-03T14:01:00.000-06:002008-12-03T14:40:55.860-06:00(If only it were) Eternal Sonata<span style="font-family:arial;">I really question the way blogger does dates. Unless I write the post in a single day (I almost never do, being as long and thought out as they are) it makes it seems like I post something the day I STARTED it, not the day I actually posted it. Guess I should manually change this, but really, that just seems silly...</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This time I'm going to skip forward a few games (sorry </span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >TWEWY</span><span style="font-family:arial;">, your time will come) because I just finished a game (</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Eternal Sonata</span><span style="font-family:arial;">, in case you didn't see it in the not-so-catchy title) that I believe is really deserving of some high praise. And, since it has been released VERY recently on the PS3, I believe it is prudent to tell those who might be interested in it just what they are getting themselves into.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">First and foremost, the game is absolutely stunning. This is by far and away the best game I have ever watched on my HD TV. This is, of course, because the art style and design are so incredible that it is absolutely mind-blowing. The cartoonish, almost anime look to the game, combined with the very elaborate and artisitc character and level designs, make for one of the most vibrant and memorable RPG experiences to date. It has a simliar look to Blue Dragon, but goes above and beyond because the world they create is so vibrant and full of life. Just the first few scenes alone assualt your eyes with deep, rich colors and a strikingly crisp, detailed world and characters so beautifully drawn that, at times, you may think you are watching a cartoon. Of course it has some funny problems (try for a second to convince yourself that anyone would hold their arms the way that they do) and some of the later enemies and bosses suffer from the dreaded pallete swap (where they use the exact same model but simply swap colors) but your mouth will simply be on the floor so often in awe of what your HDTV is able to produce that these flaws are </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >easily </span><span style="font-family:arial;">overlooked.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">It is not often that graphics stun me, especially to the point that I believe it is something that people need to know about in a game. There are games with less-than-hd quality graphics that are still amazing games (</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Smash Brothers</span><span style="font-family:arial;">, </span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Mario Kart</span><span style="font-family:arial;">), and even games that look 'good' in HD but really don't stand out too much due to poor art direction or bland environments (</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Enchanted Arms</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> has the resolution but very little inspiring art, </span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Gears of War</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> has the detail but I think they limited themselves to the colors black, brown and grey). Graphics are almost always the last thing to mention or bring up because as long as the gameplay is solid or the story is engrossing the graphics, to me, really don't matter. However, there are some games that just go above and beyond with their art direction - more important than pixels or detail - and make something really stand out or really unique. </span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >World of Warcraft</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> continues to impress me with what they can do with so little horsepower (as Blizzard has always done time and time again), </span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> showed us just what games could do with cell shading and facial expressions, and the new </span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Prince of Persia</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> really stands out as a unique and interesting art direction that I think shakes things up enough to be worth mentioning. The same can be said of </span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Eternal Sonata</span><span style="font-family:arial;">, so while I would not suggest you buy the game solely on looks alone (it's a game for crying out loud, why buy something to look at it?) it is worth noting that a new benchmark has been set for art and style of cell shaded, anime-like games. If this is where HD gaming will take us, I welcome it with open arms.</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;font-family:arial;">Eye candy aside, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Eternal Sonata</span> does an incredible job melding button mashing, dungeon crawler elements of action rpgs with traditional turn based rpg gameplay. The battle system of an rpg is one pillar on which the entire genre must stand - along with plot and characters - that gives the genre it's own uniqueness and meaning. A poor battle system can drag down even the greatest of stories (<span style="font-weight: bold;">FFXII</span>) and save a game from even the most pathetic writing (<span style="font-weight: bold;">Enchanted Arms</span>). For almost 7 years, my favorite rpg battle system belonged to the increible <span style="font-weight: bold;">Legend of Dragoon</span> (in my opinion, one of the most underrated and unknown rpgs on a system overflowing with them). For those who never palyed it, Legend of Dragoon used a classic turn based battle system that really stood out for two reasons. 1) Most characters (not all) performed 'combos' for their attacks that required you to press buttons at a certian time to increase damage and completing the combo (you could defend/counter attack in the same manner). Think of it as a more complex, fleshed out version of the <span style="font-weight: bold;">Super Mario RPG</span> battle system. This meant that battles required more attention than was usual for an RPG, so no more constantly spamming 'A' to attack things and win outright with no real challenge. 2) The game was HARD, and the limi<span style="font-size:100%;">t<span style="font-size:100%;">ations on the number of items you could carry, combined with difficult enemies, the combo system, and your limited amount of ‘magic’ meant that every turn and every decision was important and required strategic precision. This made battles more enjoyable and more thrilling, as each battle could easily be your last and you always had to be working on contingency plans and planning your next few moves. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Enchanted Arms </span>bested this system, but only by making a pact with satan himself and including a miniaturized version of a tactical, grid based SRPG as the battle system, cranking up the difficulty and rewarding you <span style="font-style: italic;">extensively </span>for finishing off foes quickly and with big numbers.<br /><br />But, I think I was trying to talk about <span style="font-weight: bold;">Eternal Soanta</span>...</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br />Eternal Sonata</span> is unique in that the battle system for the game grows and evolves as you play. When you start out the game, you begin with a very simple system that gives you plenty of time to learn your characters, plot out your moves and master the controls. As you progress, though, the system begins to become more complicated and fast paced while giving you bonuses to compensate for this increased challenge. You begin with fairly simple, 'turn based lite' type game where you may take however much time you wish to plot out your moves and each action you take has a certian 'cost' associated with it. The basics of the system do not get any more complex - you may move, attack, use an item or use a special attack (called a 'Harmony'). However, as you gain 'party levels' the battle system changes and becomes more real-time while it also expands in complexity and power. This is where the real fun begins.<br /></div><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">It turns out that the 'cost' associated with each action is actually the time it takes to perform each move. Harmonies have much longer times associated with them while normal attacks are much shorter, encouragaing you to chain multiple attacks together before finishing with a large Harmony attack. Eventually even movement takes 'time' and the battle system shifts to real time as you are slowly weened off of your 'tactical time', which gave you precious seconds to plan your move. By the end of the game, the battle is constantly flowing without interruption and it is up to you to make sure you keep track of whose turn it is next and plan out your attacks accordingly. This all happens gradually, though, over the course of the nearly 40 hour story, so you are given ample opportunity to get used to the system and moving at faster and faster paces. Perhaps the most difficult addition is the optional party level 6 ('optional' in that you could beat the game without it, required if you wish to do the bonus dungeon before you finish the game). This party level really throws a wrench into the system, changing around the buttons associated with different actions (harmony, defend, and attack) each time you perform a harmony. Of course, if mastered properly, this is not without it's own rewards...</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">As the party system becomes more complex and demanding, the rewards for keeping up with the system increase as well. You can start to save up 'echos', essentially a counter for the number of attacks you chain together in a turn, that makes your Harmonies more powerful the more echos you have. Eventually you can 'chain' Harmonies together and, at party level 6, can perform SIX harmony attacks by continuously chaining them together (remembering, of course, that the Harmony button can change each time a Harmony is used). You also gain more total echoes as your party level increases (making your Harmony attacks stronger) and, at party level 6, your Harmony chains can 'carry over' echoes and your correctly performed Harmony chains become devastatingly powerful. It also allows you to carry more items into battle (vital for classes that have no healing harmonies or equipment). The main benefit, of course, is the potential to do greater damage, something that is necessary as the bosses get tougher.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Unfortunately, as you gain a better control over your party's movements and begin to plan attacks, the game becomes almost a cakewalk. This is especially true after getting party level 6, where you can now kill enemies in a single turn and, if played right, can set up 6-chain harmonies every turn. This kind of constant damage output, coupled with a character that has a healing harmony (Viola, Chopin or Polka, for instance), and a even only occasionally properly defending against enemy attacks begins to make battles almost trivial. It still requires you to pay attention and is better than the usual "just spam A to win" style battle systems, but it may take Encore mode - where enemies have huge health and damage increases - to really begin to challenge you. Of course, the other side of the coin is that once you get good at something and learn to plan your attacks well things SHOULD get easy, so perhaps my complaint is somewhat misplaced. It did not make the battle system any less fun or involved, but it did take away the feeling of anxiety in knowing that you could be in danger of dying at any time. Overall the system is very etertaining and a marked improvement over the very slow, 'gimmie' battle systems of old and is one of the reasons that Eternal Sonata stands out in my mind as one of the best rpg's I've ever played.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Gameplay being covered, on to the story. For those who don't know, the story is loosely tied to Frederic Chopin's (composer and pianist) life, or more specifically, his death. The world acts as a kind of 'dream', something Chopin's mind takes him down as his physical body nears death. Chopin also acts as a character himself in the game, and you can watch as he battles in his mind to tell whether or not the world he currently is experience is real or a dream. You even see several historical slideshows which generally tells a kind of 'making of' each song, which, as a lover of music, is something that I actually enjoyed. This can be skipped if you so choose, which is good, because it's certianly not for everyone.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This story, however, really takes a backseat for most of the game and more sets up the 'theme' than it does the actual plot. Sure, everything is based off of music; just look at the names of locations and places, and even the shape of their weapons (which look like different kinds of musical instruments), but the real story lies in this dream world. </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" >That </span><span style="font-family:arial;">story is more your standard rpg fare. Boy meets girl, awkwardly falls for girl but can't admit it, fights against an ufair or oppressive government and does his best to save the world. I wills say that the story actually seems to 'jump' from character to character and you honestly have no 'main character'. There are several subplots that are followed and even times where you will not see the (arguably) 'main character', Alegretto, for several hours. This also means you may use whichever characters you want in your party, and are not forced to use one guy all the time. This is unusual for the genre, which tends to force entire plot to revolve or be somehow attached to the main character, but is a nice change of pace if you don't think you are being robbed of some 'main' plot. Everything that happens moves the story along, even if it's not connected in any way to a single character.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Character development is strong but occasionally flawed. Some characters certainly come across as more believable than others - Chopin being a prime example - but others are left in a sort of out on their own because it is hard for them to carve a niche into the group. The fact that they attempt to give Jazz not only a love triangle but a love SQUARE (3 girls fawning after 1 man) means that it's going to be difficult for each of them to distinguish from one another. Most of the character pairs work flawlessly - Beat and Salsa make a great pair and provide a significant amount of the humor throughout the game. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for March, who joins the party late and has no real interactions beyond with her twin sister (who already has someone you mentally pair her with). The Allegretto/Polka love story is believable enough (good enough for a video game anyway) and provides a good way for Allegretto's character to grow and the story to progress. As strong and promising of a character as Viola first presents, she quickly gets swept into Jazz's "love square" at which point she loses alot of her focus and meaning in the group aside from being yet another person swooning over Jazz. Which is sad beacuse the Jazz/Falsetto/Claves love triangle actually stands well on it's own and, given the events of the story, is one of the bigger story arcs that you can see visibly affect the characters and their decisions. The PS3 version includes 2 new characters, and while they are strong NPC characters and could add more dynamics to the group mix, given when they are introduced into the story I feel it may be a bit too late to try and add them in effectively.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">On the whole, there are enough twists to keep you guessing and the delivery of the story is strong, backed by characters that you can relate to very well and remain both entertaining and interesting throughout the game. There are occasional hiccups or oddities - some of the love stories feel awkward or forced and the ending is both satisfying and incredibly bizarre - so while the game does not set a new standard in storytelling or epic plots by any means, it does more than 'get the job done' and is enough to keep your interest piqued as you progress. It certainly does not detract from the experience in any way (minus, perhaps, the ending).</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Overall, </span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Eternal Soanta</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> represents everything that keeps me coming back to RPGs time and time again. Massive worlds, believeable characters, epic plots, interesting battle systems and incredibly rewarding gameplay experiences. This game executes above and beyond expectations in almost every category and will one day be considered a 'classic' in my eyes. If you're even a modest fan of JRPGs, this game is not to be missed. I would recommend it over any other RPG that I have played this generation and over just about every one I've played my whole life (with the exception of revolutionary classics like </span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >FF7</span><span style="font-family:arial;">, </span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Xenogears </span><span style="font-family:arial;">or </span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Legend of Dragoon</span><span style="font-family:arial;">). It takes some getting used to - especially if you are not a fan of the cartoony look - but in the end, this game will not disappoint.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">As for what's next, I'd love to sing the praises of </span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >The World Ends With You</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> but perhaps I will take a break from my usual JRPG/SRPG lovefest and review </span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Castlevania</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> or</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" > Spore</span><span style="font-family:arial;">.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Currently playing:</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">WoW:WotLK (PC)</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced 2 (DS)</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice (DS)</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Professor Layton and the Curious Villiage (DS)</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Rock Band 2 (360)</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn (Wii)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >What should be next:</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The World Ends With You (DS)</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (DS)</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Spore (PC)</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced 2 (DS)<br /><br />How on earth did I miss reviewing Bioshock (360)?<br /></span>Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10849198565080158294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813246974673941322.post-5675908940292633382008-10-24T12:58:00.000-05:002008-11-06T18:22:47.959-06:00Real life, or larger than life?With September and October completely gone,, I figured I should write a new post lest I go 3 months without saying anything. It seems like everytime I sit down and say I want to do this more often I end up doing it <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">less </span>often - maybe I should try it the other way around for once?<br /><br />Comparing <span style="font-weight: bold;">GTAIV </span>and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Saint's Row</span> is not only a difficult task, but it is also a flawed one. Saint's row came out pretty early in the 360's life (compared to <span style="font-weight: bold;">GTAIV</span>) and is really the first attempt by developer Volition to break into the sand-box genre. Which, let's face it, EVERYHTHING is immediately compared to the GTA series - they are even called "GTA clones". It's not easy going up against this kind of prestige, that kind of entrenched genre where anything you do will be seen as a cheap rip-off. It's like making an adventure game without featuring Link or a platforming game without Mario. You will always be compared to games that have taken the genre to near-perfection and you will never be taken seriously. It may be more fair to compare <span style="font-weight: bold;">GTAIV </span>and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Saint's Row 2</span> - especially considering <span style="font-weight: bold;">Saint's Row</span> is now a proven franchise and it has had more time to develop properly on the platform. That is, of course, if <span style="font-weight: bold;">Saint's Row</span> was even worth playing in the first place. So was it? Or was it all just hype?<br /><br />You'll need some background on my history with the genre before you can fully understand my review and where I'm coming from when I write it: Playing linear RPG's and strategy titles all the time with hard limits and a set pace leaves me wanting every year or so a good, free roaming game that lets me choose what I do and why I'm doing it. I was one of those people that had not even heard of Grand Theft Auto until it's explosion on the PS2. To me, <span style="font-weight: bold;">GTAIII </span>was to Sandbox games as <span style="font-weight: bold;">FFVII </span>was to RPGs for others. It was really my first glance into sandbox style gaming, and coming from a person who plays most games in a linear, driven fashion it left me both paralyzed and excited. In <span style="font-weight: bold;">GTAIII </span>I loved the ability to do whatever I wanted - if I wanted to move the story forward, I could. If I wanted to do side missions, I could. If I wanted to just cause havoc, I could. As you moved forward in the game and you opened up multiple places to get 'jobs', it gave even more of a sense of freedom, as you could work on something else if one mission proved too tough or too annoying. The freedom was absolutely intoxicating, and even as you got near the 'end' of the game it always felt like it was fun even if you weren't moving the story forward.<br /><br />After that came <span style="font-weight: bold;">Vice City</span> which, in my humble opinion, is the best of the three <span style="font-weight: bold;">GTAIII </span>games. It added alot to the existing <span style="font-weight: bold;">GTAIII </span>forumla (motorcycles, for instance) but it's best feature was improving the story and the characters. <span style="font-weight: bold;">GTAIII</span>'s story gets lost in it's own massiveness, and actually only plays an important role to set up why you're a convict on the run and to wrap up the end of the game. They could just as easily made the game have NO story - chop it out completely - and the game would stand up just as well. That is absolutely not the case with Vice City. Characters and plot were essential to fully enjoying the game, and it made the sandbox experience that much better. Meeting and understanding the loony and bizzare cast of characters and exploring the (very well done) 1980's style environments were a breath of fresh air after the dark, dab 'liberty city' and the monotone, uninspired, often forgettable characters from GTAIII.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">San Andreas</span> tried it's best to improve on this but fell short, especially in my eyes. It was not a bad game by any means, but the game was SO massive that it was actually hindered by it's size. It took forever to get anywhere, none of the cities and locations were particularly inspired, the addition of 'rpg-like' elements really stole away from the "go anywhere do anything" feel and some of the missions were punishingly difficult or tedious. Despite the fact that it was larger, it didn't feel like there was as much to do as there was in Vice City, and Rockstar's attempts to turn the main story into an almost cinematic plot really fell face first on its awkward characters and bizzare situations. This was Rockstar's attempt to deliver "gritty realism" and to really try and "push the envelope" with the series, but instead it loses most of it's focus on gameplay and becomes clouded in its own priorities. I never got past the second of the three cities, and for good reason. Nothing held my attention and it felt like it took forever to do anything... only to fail and then have to take forever AGAIN. San Andreas may have been a technical marvel on the PS2 but it was an exercise in frustration from a gameplay standpoint.<br /><br />OK, so on to the games at hand:<br /><br />I received <span style="font-weight: bold;">Saint's Row</span> on a whim (it was a gift, but I asked for it partially as a joke) but was eager to try it out because it has been a really, really long time since i'd played an open world, sandbox style game. San Andreas left me with a poor taste and I'd played <span style="font-weight: bold;">Vice City</span> long ago enough that nostalgia was starting to set in. I was afraid for <span style="font-weight: bold;">Saint's Row</span> after seeing a roomate play it - the characters were over-the-top stupid and the entire getup seemed way to ridiculous and 'gangster' to even enjoy. Instead of deep, interesting characters (like in <span style="font-weight: bold;">Vice City</span>) there were absolutely ridiculous stereotypes and just an uneccessarily large amount of cursing and street slang. Now, I try to be a good Christian and try not to curse myself, and I find myself willing to allow a reasonable amount of cursing or sleaze if it serves a purpose (and, let's face it, the fact I've even played these two games shows I have a pretty loose policy when it comes to things like this). But in <span style="font-weight: bold;">Saint's Row</span> it really serves no purpose other than to be over the top and offensive, which I found to be very annoying.<br /><br />The desire to play a sandbox game eventually overcame the hesitation, and while I certainly would not call this 'the best game ever' or even remotely close I think it fits well as a niche alternative to <span style="font-weight: bold;">GTAIV</span>. This is not because of the story or the characters - both so cliche and stereotypical that it really serves no purpose other than to give your game an 'ending' point or a reason to try something new - but because of gameplay. It is obvious that they knew they couldn't compete with GTA toe-to-toe, so they instead took the 'parody' route with the plot (giving us all the over the top cliches) while doing much to innovate and really try to draw out that fun, 'do anything' sandbox feel. Not since <span style="font-weight: bold;">GTAIII </span>have I had so much fun just roaming around the streets picking up odd jobs and doing weird or unusual things for the sake of doing it. The game does an excellent job of providing tons of spur-of-the-moment entertainment and new or innovative side jobs that can really pile up and distract you from the (hideous) main story.<br /><br />Fortunately, for a sandbox game, gameplay is much more important than story. I was OK with <span style="font-weight: bold;">GTAIII</span>'s less than stellar plotline and easily forgettable characters. This was because it was still fun to play. I was happier when they actually added some flair to the games presentation with their release of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Vice City</span>, and I believe Rockstar learned a valuable lesson from the trip ups with <span style="font-weight: bold;">San Andreas</span>'s slow, boring, tedious gameplay. Since <span style="font-weight: bold;">Saint's Row</span> takes itself far less seriously and opts to remove alot of the gritty realism and immersion, opting instead for some over-the-top thrills, the gameplay overall is much smoother and much more entertaining. New odd jobs, like insurance fraud, handily beat the more "realistic" side stuff in previous GTAs (like, "buy a business and then periodically drive by and collect cash"). Having multiple cars available to you in your garage instead of just 1 lets you collect all the nice, exotic, or just plain strange cars that you want without that annoying "only one car can be saved in your garage" limit. The fact that you can die or get busted - and when you're pulling wacky stunts or doing weird things, it happens ALOT - and still get to keep your weapons is an incredible boon. It was too annoying in the earlier GTA's to have to go around and build up your arsenal again before you did your next mission because you decided to try that crazy stunt jump or try and fly a helicopter in between.<br /><br />Things like this may add 'realism' and 'consequences' but also add an invisible barrier to the game that actively discourages you from just just exploring and generally having a good time. In a sandbox game it is absolutely <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">imperative </span>that you interfere with the player's game as little as possible. The beauty of a sandbox game is <span style="font-style: italic;">freedom </span>- the ability to go wherever, do whatever, whenever, and for no reason other than <span style="font-style: italic;">because you can</span>. That is not to say that sandbox games cannot have a 'tiered' system or that you must have access to everything right away. You can still 'lock' certian areas, items and retain a sense of 'progession' and gives the player something to aim for or a separate goal to accomplish (new cars, weapons, locations or side quests). That's fine. But when you begin dictating what players can and cannot do, or adding consequences to choices (apparant or otherwise) that detract from the overall experience, it doesn't matter how revolutionary or how impressive these are, they still remain annoying nuiscances to the true gameplay. This is perhaps <span style="font-weight: bold;">GTAIV</span>'s greatest flaw, but I'll get to that later.<br /><br />So for all of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Saint's Row</span>'s many failures (story, characters, offensiveness and lack of originality) it is more than made up for in gameplay. To be fair, the game feels like a giant leap forward from <span style="font-weight: bold;">Crackdown </span>in terms of depth of gameplay, size and variety but is severely hindered by it's "super thug" image and the both offensive and annoying story. However, as a <span style="font-style: italic;">game</span>, Saint's Row delivers an enjoyable sandbox experience that is certianly more fun than <span style="font-weight: bold;">San Andreas</span> ever was. The developers really had something going here with the gameplay but everything else is so lacking that I probably would've been extremely agitated had I paid full price for it. This is certianly something worth digging out of a bargain bin, used or even as a platinum hit - don't rent it, though, as there's alot of milage to be had from the massive world, and if you feel rushed to complete the "story" or move forward you'll lose alot of what makes sandbox games so great.<br /><br />Before we begin a direct comparison (although I'm sure you can already see what my complaints and praises to GTAIV are going to be) allow me to give a review of GTAIV on it's own.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Grand Theft Auto IV</span> represents a great step forward for games. It proves the kind of amazing things we can do with "next gen" technology. It shows the kind of incredible storytelling, deep characters, numerous choices and limitless replay that can be placed into a game. As of it's release, it raised the bar for what the sandbox genre really means. The density and life of the city, the depth and interactions with the characters, the intrigue story that you decide, the realistic physics; these are all things that have rarely been done on their own, let alone as a group. Rockstar put a very large and commendable amount of effort in creating a vibrant city and populating it with an interesting and varied cast of characters. You can really tell the amount of work and time that went in to every street corner; hardly any part of the city feels 'duplicated' or like a simple texture remapping or pallete swap and each area is really given it's own life. What has been done on these consoles and the evolution from the GTAIII engine is not only a marvel technically, but also a milestone in terms of the size and scope that games will have in the future.<br /><br />It is unfortunate, then, that they forgot you <span style="font-style: italic;">wanted to have fun</span> while you play it.<br /><br />For all the praise I can give it, <span style="font-weight: bold;">GTAIV </span>boils down to perhaps nothing more than an exercise in <span style="font-style: italic;">extreme </span>frustration. It seems that for every new freedom or new gameplay they add, they tether you down with annoying and excessively repetitive tasks. Honestly, the only thing 'sandbox' about the game anymore is that the world is large and seamless. The missons are incredibly linear and repetitive, the gameplay becomes stale after about the fourth or fifth mission (even with the addition of the Gears of War-like 'cover' system), side quests and things to do are almost non-existant and what's there is punishingly brutal in how boring and monotonous it is. Added or new gameplay elements - 'friends', internet cafes, and the like - are not only incredibly uninspired but act as the games greatest weakness, so much so that it is oft made fun of by gamers (particulaly in <a href="http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=265">webcomics</a>). Compared to other GTA games, <span style="font-weight: bold;">GTAIV</span> stands out technically and in overall presentation but just falls completely on it's face in terms of gameplay.<br /><br />It is almost painfully obvious that the game suffers due to Rockstar trying to really make the game as realistic as possible. They decided to make this great world, this amazingly detailed microcosm of American life and the typical american city (more specifically, New York) and this they do splendidly. But they take the idea too far, and gameplay suffers for the sake of "realism". Driving is now about as fun as having a root canal since controlling your car through any type of turn is next to impossible. Forget the GTA staples like handbraking through turns, adrenaline pumping police chases and dangerously weaving in and out of traffic at breakneck speeds. Instead, you must resign yourself to going about 10 miles an hour if you want to make turns without losing complete control and slamming into a wall, trying to get around traffic often ends in fishtailing (or running into something that causes you to do so) and you can just forget trying to do so into <span style="font-style: italic;">oncoming </span>traffic.<br /><br />This is because driving is now more 'realistic', which is obviously true. Yeah, if I took a 90 degree turn going 45mph or more I probably wouldn't make a clean turn. Sure, if I was weaving in and out of traffic I'd probably clip something once or twice and cause my car to fishtail. Of course people would try to get out of my way if I was coming at them in the wrong lane. However, <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">none of these facts make it fun</span>, and often make the gameplay frustrating or slow. Instead of 70 mile an hour car chases through downtown avoiding cars and doing my best to avoid telephone poles, I'm resigned to 10 mile an hour pleasure cruises (while my 6 star rating has helicopters shooting at me) and a nice trip through the windshield should I even look at a lightpost the wrong way. Driving in this game is almost as bad as it was in <span style="font-weight: bold;">Crackdown</span>, although even that became a little more manageble once you 'skilled up'. When you make perhaps the largest portion of the game - the <span style="font-style: italic;">Auto </span>- an unenjoyable and aggravating experience, it does not bode well for how people are going to enjoy the experience, regardless of how 'life like' it may be.<br /><br />That is, of course, assuming the rest of the game played well. Which it doesn't.<br /><br />The number of things wrong just climbs up from here. 'Friends' are a great addition to the game because it really helps you develop relationships and learn more about the characters of the series, giving you the opportunity to to expand upon that portion of the game's presentation if you choose to do so. Therein, of course, lies the rub: <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">IF YOU CHOOSE TO DO SO</span>. I am amazed and perplexed by the fact that the makers of the defacto, genre defining 'sandbox' game could make something so disrubtive. The beauty of the sandbox genre is the freedom to do whatever you want, whenever you want, and for whatever reason. It's not an RPG, where you must grind levels to fight a boss or to get out of a specific area. It's not an action adventure game where you are limited to a single dungeon or zone while you look for a specific item. It's not a point and click adventure where you move along a set path and do events in a specific order. So why, for the love of all that is holy, did they make this feature so disruptive?<br /><br />Here is how the game occurs during a typical playing session. You are just kind of going around, maybe working on a mission or doing a side quest or running from the cops or whatever. Suddenly, your phone goes off. Oh, it's your cousin. He wants to go to play some darts. But, of course, you're tied up at the moment. "Maybe later", you say. Whoops, he doesn't like that. Then your girlfriend calls. You haven't called in a while, and she wants to go to dinner. "Kinda busy" you reply. More bad rep for you. This continues. On. and on. and on. They are relentless, always bugging you and never giving you the time of day to accomplish anything worthwhile. When you finally cave in and DO agree, are given a one hour ultimatium on how long they will wait for you, <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">regardless of your current location</span>. Police chase? Better end it soon. On the other side of the city? Don't mess up a single turn! Trying to tie up a few loose ends? Sorry, restart it and finish it later. Because if you miss them, they'll be even MORE mad (yet still bother calling you within the next 10 minutes to start bugging you again.<br /><br />To make matters worse, getting in touch with THEM is impossible. They all keep different schedules, none of which I bother to memorize (because honestly how often do you want to call the people that bug you the most) and if you call them at the wrong time, BAM, bad rep again. Take them someone they don't like? Also bad. Not to mention that stuff you do with them is generally very, very boring. Bowling? Sitting in a Comedy Clubs? Darts? <span style="font-style: italic;">Drunk Driving</span>? This is all they could come up with? You are rewarded for your incredible patience and for giving up all that limitless fun and adventure you could have in this huge and bustling city with a rousing game of... bowling. Yeah, wow, great idea there.<br /><br />But this is what I mean when 'realism' just gets in the way of fun. Sure, people would really do that. They would get annoyed when you turn them down for stuff. They would also get annoyed if you called them in the middle of the night. They might even nag you if they havne't heard from you in a while. But why include this if it makes the game annoying? Why do something for the sake of realsim at the cost of fun? Especially in this case, where the returns of doing stuff with friends (back story, character interaction, funny moments, in game rewards like free taxi rides) already include enough incentive for players to do it on their own? It boggles the mind.<br /><br />These two things alone make me never want to replay <span style="font-weight: bold;">GTAIV </span>(something I did repeatedly with <span style="font-weight: bold;">GTA III</span> and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Vice City</span>) and may even prevent me from purchasing the future 'DLC' material. It may not be enough to make you quit on your first playthrough, where the story, characters and initial exploration can carry you until the end, but once that is over and done the only thing left to do is be constantly and endlessly bugged by your friends while you attempt to do something new or interesting. It's like someone saying they would have preferred Otis to interrupt the more in <span style="font-weight: bold;">Dead Rising</span>; it just won't ever happen and really broke up the pacing of an otherwise fine game. When a sandbox game has very low replayability and next to no variety, well, things don't look good for a game that fails in the two very things it is supposed to excel.<br /><br />However, where character development really shines in the support cast, the development of Nikko is often unbalanced and generally poor. He always claims to be running from his haunted past but almost effortlessly returns to a life of crime again and again, to a point where he just gives up attempting to retain some level of morality and who's only concern is 'what's in it for me'. This makes it difficult to see him actually becoming emotionally attached to ANY character, let alone his girlfriends or his dumb-in-the-head cousin, who Nikko often times goes well out of his way to protect. It feels like they tried to make Nikko plasy a prominent part in two completely different worlds simultaneously - the ruthless, revenge seeking madman who will kill for money and harbors no pity or remorse, and the friendly, happy go lucky boyfriend wishing his cousin all the luck and staying close to family and those nearest to his heart. Instead it makes for a confusing display of an almsot schizophrenic man who on one hand tells his girlfriend he doesn't like the bad things he's doing and then immediately turns around and tells the mob he'll kill anyone they want if the pay is right. And this is someone we're supposed to relate to? It's almost impossible to believe and is perhaps the only negative one can have against the story telling, as you'll never know which Nikko will show up this time: the murderous, vengeful one or the caring, friendly one.<br /><br />The list of nitpicks just goes on and on. Why can't I have more than 1 car saved at a time? Why are stores spaced so far apart and so difficult to get to? Why so few customization options on what to wear? The list of questionable decisions and gameplay choices just goes on, and on.<br /><br />Of course the game is not ALL negative, but for a game that recieves a '10/10' by and large in the media one must focus on the negatives to point out just where they are wrong. The cover system works very well (when it lets you actually use a wall or the camera feels like being helpful) and really enhances the fight elements over the <span style="font-weight: bold;">GTAIII</span> installments. The missions are really well tied together and often times feel 'epic' or eventful, like you are making a lasting impact on the world and the people around you (even if it has none to your main character). The choices you are given lets you craft Nikko's destiny in a way you choose and even affects the ending you receive, something that is nice for a genre that prides itself on choice and freedom.<br /><br />You know, it really makes you think. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Assassin's Creed</span> is, in many ways, in the same boat as <span style="font-weight: bold;">GTAIV</span>. Sandbox games with great stories and characters that fail to impress in replayability and variety. Of course, at least Assassin's Creed's core gameplay is fun and unique as opposed to <span style="font-weight: bold;">GTAIV</span>'s horrendous driving. But, here we are, <span style="font-weight: bold;">GTAIV </span>recieving scroes as though it is the best game ever made and sporting so many '10/10' reviews that it makes me wonder if these reviewers recieved the same game that I did, or even played it at all. Did they want to be the first to review this overly hyped game so bad that they played 10 minutes and then rushed off to write the review? Did they gloss over these errors and annoyances for fear of a customer backlash? Did they give readers what they expected just because it would be what drove the most traffic and sold the most copies? Perhaps. It certianly would explain why <span style="font-weight: bold;">Assassin's Creed</span> recieved such terrible marks and <span style="font-weight: bold;">GTAIV</span> received such high praise.<br /><br />Of course, all you were here for is a comparison, right? Well, I gave it away in the title, but it really comes down to what you are looking for. Gameplay, larger than life presentation and a focus on freedom and fun? <span style="font-weight: bold;">Saint's Row</span>. Looking for gritty realism, deep characters and a stunning narrative? <span style="font-weight: bold;">GTAIV</span>. You'll probably have more fun with <span style="font-weight: bold;">Saint's Row</span> (even if you can't bring yourself to admit it) and you'll definitely remember the story and characters from <span style="font-weight: bold;">GTAIV</span> more. My recommendation? Play <span style="font-weight: bold;">Saint's Row</span> to have fun, <span style="font-weight: bold;">GTAIV</span>'s story can wait until it's bargain bin. Or maybe pick up <span style="font-weight: bold;">Saint's Row 2</span>? I don't know, haven't played it yet...<br /><br />Here's a breif glimpse into the future: Hopefully, that won't be 2009...<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Currently playing:</span><br />WoW (in anticipation of WOTLK)<br />Eternal Sonata (360)<br />Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced 2 (DS)<br />Rock Band 2 (360)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">What should be next:</span><br />The World Ends With You (DS)<br />Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (DS)<br />Spore (PC)<br />Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced 2 (DS)Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10849198565080158294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813246974673941322.post-78268887511796259232008-08-19T14:00:00.000-05:002008-09-25T11:34:03.226-05:00Nintendo JuggernautsI'm way behind on games, and as such a ton of very high profile games has gone by without me so much as saying a word. For now, I'll focus on some of the older ones - <span style="font-weight: bold;">Smash Brothers Brawl</span> and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Mario Kart</span>. They may be 'old hat' by now, but as 2 of the biggest names in the Nintendo arsenal (in company with the likes of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Zelda</span>, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Mario </span>and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Metroid</span>) these games may remain the last 'high profile' remake that Nintendo churns out for a while (<span style="font-weight: bold;">Mario</span>, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Zelda</span>, and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Metroid </span>having already debuted on the Wii).<br /><br />Since it came first, I'll start with <span style="font-weight: bold;">Smash Brothers Brawl</span>. The anticipation for this game could not have been higher - melee was perhaps my most played multiplayer game of last generation, competing only with <span style="font-weight: bold;">World of Warcraft</span> in terms of time played with friends. The original <span style="font-weight: bold;">Smash Brothers</span> game helped to define the N64 as the multiplayer console of choice (along with <span style="font-weight: bold;">Goldeneye</span>, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Perfect Dark</span>, <span style="font-weight: bold;">F-Zero X</span> and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Mario Kart 64</span>) and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Smash Brothers Melee </span>took the low budget, almost 'technical demo' feel of the original Smash, improved upon it ten-fold and polished it until it gleemed. To improve upon melee was in and of itself a nearly impossible task, and yet while this was accomplished impressively, I can't help but feel let down by <span style="font-weight: bold;">Brawl </span>to some extent.<br /><br />In many ways, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Brawl </span>suffers from the hype and build up that many high profile games eventually fall prey to (especially long-development games). For all that Brawl was, it could not stand up to the imaginations of it's rabid followers, and since <span style="font-weight: bold;">Melee </span>was so incredible people were expecting things that could not feasibly be done. Give them Sonic, and suddenly they want dozens of third party characters. Give them a stage builder and suddenly then they demand it to be massive in scope and customizable to an increidbly detailed level. Give them online and they want an entire infrastructure with dozens of customization options, flawless latency regardless of personal connection and 100% up time starting on day 1. Give them single player and suddenly they want the story mode longer and more complex and more involved. The list goes on and on.<br /><br />Now, I don't think <span style="font-weight: bold;">Brawl </span>was a "10/10", if one must think of such things on a numerical scale. In fact, the only game in recent memory that I have played that felt even remotely close to 10/10 was Portal. This includes <span style="font-weight: bold;">GTAIV </span>(to be discussed later). But just because a hotly anticipated title does not reach perfection by no means makes it a 'bad' game. Smash Brothers in an incredible game, overflowing with so much content that to complete it all might take you the entire life of the system to accomplish, if not more. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Brawl </span>will still be some of the most fun you'll ever have with 4 people, and it even significantly beefs up the longevity of the game for someone who plays it alone as you now have both an entire single-player story mode as well as online play to keep you going strong.<br /><br />To me, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Brawl </span>is the defacto Smash Brothers experience. When all is said and done, it takes the near-perfection of Melee, expands the roster, throws in new items, modes, options, levels, tprophies, customization AND adds online play. I would never return to <span style="font-weight: bold;">Melee </span>to play Smash Brothers, there's no reason to unless you prefer some of the subtle nuances in <span style="font-weight: bold;">Melee</span>'s (broken) physics system. From here on out, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Brawl </span>is the new standard in terms of what a 4 player fighter must to do push the envelope and remain on top. It does exactly what a sequel should do - take an established franchise and find new ways to push the envelope, expand the game and build upon the core experience, all while remaining fun to play. In this, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Smash Brothers Brawl</span> excels more than most, providing an astonishingly huge amount of new content, experiences, options and modes in a genre that typically only updates the graphics and rosters.<br /><br />Are there problems? Sure. Some people say that online doesn't work (although, in my experience, it works fine). The fighting is not quite as tight as it is when played locally, but for a game whose entire experiences revolves around millisecond response times, it is enough to make the game playable and enjoyable. What really hurts the online experience is the puzzling lack of voice chat. Even if only available in a "Lobby" setting, thise would have made choosing games online with friends far less awkward and confusing. You can get around this by playing locally or perhaps communicating via IM or phone, but then you are rushing to make contact as you fight against the clock to choose your character and next stage. Then you don't even know why your friend left, or if he wants to leave soon... it takes all of the fun out of the multiplayer and boils it down to what might as well be you playing a (possibly) more intelligent AI. Despite the fact that online works for me, I still wait for friends to come over to play Brawl - this, to me, is the full extent of the multiplayer experience, not small text bubbles and taunts.<br /><br />The stage 'builder' is a great idea but suffers from complete lack of originality and a depressingly small number of items to build from. I've seen a few nice ideas come from the stage builder mode - the 'daily' customized stage is also a nice feature - but compared to the enviornment and character of the levels shipped with the game they look absolutely bland.<br /><br />Story mode is entertaining perhaps once through, but it has very little to make you want to come back for more, much less at higher difficulties. This may be because the fighting characters are tasked with performing strange and often times awkward platformer-esque elements while being chained to their fighting style. What's worse, co-op story mode is an awkward wreck that at times punishes players for bringing a friend instead of rewarding them for playing together. The 'stickers' provide the basis for a great rpg-esque way to imrpove your characters that revolves around rewarding you for collecting items and playing more, but it fails to remain addictive considering the amount of painstaking work that must be done to obtain many of them... only to lose them if you decide to use it to power up your character. It starts off very impressive, with each character beginning in their own location and allowing the levels to cater to the strengths and weaknesses of those characters. As you get near the end, though, and you may choose your poison, larger and less mobile characters are more likely to lead to frustration than fun as they start to fail some of the more complex portions of the 'platforming' sections of the game. Overall, the "Subspace Emissary" was an enjoyable experience and a Nintendo Fan's greatest dream materialized onto disk, but only the most dedicated of trophy/sticker collectors will come back for a second or third attempt at this awkward platformer.<br /><br />All these faults aside, however, the Smash Brothers experience is still not one to be missed. Whenever I have 4 friends over, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Brawl </span>is still the standard go-to for 4 person multiplayer, Rock Band being a close-to-distant second depending upon player skill. To say that the game is "bad" or that it is not worth playing because it being a few flaws short of sheer perfection is nothing more than a rabid fanbase being let down by their own wild imaginations in anticipation. If you own a Wii and like the genre, you should own this game. Like Melee, it will probably end up being the most played game on your Nintendo system this generation.<br /><br />Now it's time for (yet another) largely multiplayer affair: <span style="font-weight: bold;">Mario Kart Wii</span>. The Wii is well known for being that all-inclusive, local player party console. Ironically, Nintendo has been that way since the N64 with the inclusion of 4 controllers on a single console. What started with <span style="font-weight: bold;">Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Mario Kart 64</span> and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Smash Brothers</span> has continued in spirit through the Gamecube and Wii. Meanwhile, the PS1, Ps2 and PS3 are known for largely single player affairs and the Xbox/360 are known for networked games over Live. Up to this point in the Wii's lifetime it was not known for excellent online games (<span style="font-weight: bold;">Mario Strikers</span>? <span style="font-weight: bold;">Pokemon</span>? Even <span style="font-weight: bold;">Brawl</span> was troubled for some people) so hearing that <span style="font-weight: bold;">Mario Kart</span> was going online with 12 people was not met with the same enthusiasm as perhaps I should have had.<br /><br />The <span style="font-weight: bold;">Mario Kart</span> series has always been fun to me, but at the same time I don't 'love' it like many people would. I completely skipped over <span style="font-weight: bold;">Double Dash</span> (despite actually enjoying the dual-kart mechanic) and the <span style="font-weight: bold;">Super Circuit</span> (for the GBA). It even took me several months of having the DS version of the game before finally starting to get into it, but I was largely wrapped up in the single player portions and challenges.<br /><br />I'm not an enthusiastic fan of racing games, and a game like <span style="font-weight: bold;">Mario Kart</span> - where you vie for first place by use of objects that generally lead towards equalizing the playing field - is not won on skill nearly as much as luck/opportunity. The same can be said, in a sense, for Smash Brothers. Obviously, there is <span style="font-style: italic;">some </span>skill involved, but when the only reason you lose is because you were hit by 2 blue turtle shells right before the end of the race, it doesnt' feel that way. This makes for close games that tend to spread the fun around - great for local parties with close friends - but as an online experience it is almost as frustrating as it is fun. So while the online is fun, well integrated and almost flawless as an experience, the game makes me tend to play offline instead of online. I have played online with friends - which is how I know the system actually works smoothly - but the limitations of communication really hold back and prevent it from being a 'great' online game.<br /><br />Offline the game is a blast, and the wii wheel actually improves the experience instead of retracts from it (a first, IMO, from a cheap plastic peripheral). Your control isn't quite as precise so obviously professionals will want to stick to the controller, but there's something about a room full of people madly leaning left and right to try and eek a bit more turn out of a controller that makes the game that much more entertaining and involving. It also makes the game much more accessible to the coveted 'casual' market and means you can play with your parents or grandparents or even little siblings without having to spend hours trying to get them to wrap their head around confusing button placement and combinations.<br /><br />Unfortunately for <span style="font-weight: bold;">Mario Kart Wii</span>, it's greatest fault is that it has to compete with so many other multiplayer games that, for the 'core' gamer, it will go largely unplayed. Most of these gamers will spend their time playing <span style="font-weight: bold;">Brawl</span> (or <span style="font-weight: bold;">CoD4</span>, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Halo</span>, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Rock Band</span>, etc) than they will <span style="font-weight: bold;">Mario Kart</span>. However, for the 'casual' gamer, such as my parents or younger siblings, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Mario Kart</span> represents probably the best of what Wii has to offer: a multiplayer experience that is boiled down to simple, intuitive controls that is enjoyable for everyone regardless of who wins or loses. Expect to hear core gamers frequently complain about how they never play Mario Kart and how you shouldn't get it, but if your father is getting tired of play <span style="font-weight: bold;">Tiger Woods</span> and your mother is looking for something more social than <span style="font-weight: bold;">Brain Age</span>, Mario Kart Wii represents that perfect Nintendo blend of simplicity and depth that will help make your family holidays that much more enjoyable.<br /><br />Mario Kart single player is your standard fare, drive through cups to win 1st place and unlock stuff. Nintendo definitely went all out with Mario Kart Wii, though, throwing in more than a half dozen unlockable characters and tons of unlockable bikes/karts. Unfortunately, most of these can only be unlocked in single player so if you only like to play with others then you're stuck with the bare-bones, out of the box options. I find it somewhat curious that special things must be 'unlocked' - I understand that thought process behind it (give people something to aim for and a reason to keep playing) but at the same time it almost feels like a punishment for those who don't have time or skill to play that much. I much prefer Xbox360/Steam achievements - that give you goals and bragging rights outside of the standard game - as that means you are not limited to the content you can access.<br /><br />I personally am only halfway through the 100CC class and have barely scratched the surface on time trials so the number of characters and vehicles that I've 'unlocked' is paltry at best. Most of my time is spent playing Mario Kart multiplayer with friends and family, and my single player time is devoted to other, more single-player oriented games (currently <span style="font-weight: bold;">Eternal Sonata</span> and <span style="font-weight: bold;">FFTA2</span>) to have time for Mario Kart's frustrating game of "dodge the blue shells to victory". I'm not one of those people who feels the AI is more 'rubberband' like than it was in previous games (despite having skipped several), but with 12 carts on the same track you are bound to have more items on the field at all times. It is just annoying to finish 3 races in first only to have bad luck ruin your fourth and final race and set you back a whole half hour's worth of effort. For someone who's time is becoming a more and more precious commodity, to have things like this occur become more and more irritating. It's a fine line between 'difficult' and 'frustrating', and Mario Kart Wii definitely falls into the 'frustrating' category at times.<br /><br />In the end, Mario Kart Wii remains a very good game that is held back by a flood of other multiplayer games (<span style="font-weight: bold;">Smash Bros</span>, <span style="font-weight: bold;">WoW</span>, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Rock Band</span>) and a (sometimes) aggravating single player experience, which is feel has always been the case for <span style="font-weight: bold;">Mario Kart</span> games. It has definitely been worth the investment - my family loves it and it is something that everyone can enjoy without needing much experience or being too overwhelmed (as opposed to <span style="font-weight: bold;">Smash Brothers</span>). It has usurped <span style="font-weight: bold;">Tiger Woods Wii</span> as the 'time with family' game of choice. There is enough here to make the game worth the investment over time - especially if you find yourself wanting games to play without people who aren't quite 'gamers' - but don't be surprised if your close friends will prefer challenging themselves to <span style="font-weight: bold;">Rock Band</span> on Expert, fragging each other in <span style="font-weight: bold;">Call of Duty 4</span> or duking it out in <span style="font-weight: bold;">Super Smash Brothers</span>. That's how it was on the N64, that's how it was on the Gamecube, and that's how it will always be - but that does not make <span style="font-weight: bold;">Mario Kart Wii</span> a 'bad game'. It just makes it a niche one, and it fills it quite nicely.<br /><br />Sorry it took so long to finish these reviews - crazy things like PAX, hurricane Ike, work and other personal reasons have prevented me from having as much free time as I like. I'm trying to work towards a more stable update schedule - I may not make 'weekly', but I'd at least like to challenge myself to have these done in a timely manner so it's not a guessing game for you as to when they are done. Speaking of what's next:<br /><br />Currently playing:<br />Eternal Sonata (360)<br />Spore (PC)<br />Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced 2 (DS)<br /><br />What should be next:<br />GTA IV (360)<br />Saint's Row (360)<br />The World Ends With You (DS)<br />Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (DS)<br /><br />Looks like next blog may be my comparison of GTAIV to Saint's Row. You might find my conclusions somewhat surprising.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10849198565080158294noreply@blogger.com0