New Game +

Portable Game Triple Pack

2012-01-26T03:53:00.000-06:00

In the past few months, I've completed three games for portable systems: Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions (PSP), The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (DS), and Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth (DS).

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.

Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions (PSP)
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 Fire Emblem games for GBA, that Advance Wars game for the DS (Days of Ruin or some such), and of course the Final Fantasy Tactics Advance series. Jonesing for some good tactical RPG goodness, I picked up a PSP and a copy of the original Tactics.

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 Final Fantasy VII, 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.

So what I'm driving at is that the PSP version features an excellent 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 great, 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.

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 every time, 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 Tactics Ogre port that I just started playing.)

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, a lot more depth.)

The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (DS)
Spirit Tracks is the second Zelda game for the DS, following the lead of Phantom Hourlgass. 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, Wind Waker), except instead of ships, this time around the game has trains. Yes, that's right, trains. 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 very good, and I hope to finish it and write about it soon.)

Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth (DS)
The Ace Attorney games have been covered pretty extensively here, between the original series and Apollo Justice. Timeline-wise, this game takes place shortly after the events of Trials and Tribulations 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 could 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.

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 first, even though I had already made the connection between the two).

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.

Texas' Twisted Pixel Two-Step

2011-07-07T01:49:00.000-05:00

Twisted Pixel is a small team development studio with big ideas, and each game they make gets more epic and more impressive. With Ms. 'Splosion Man and The Gunstringer 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: 'Splosion Man and Comic Jumper.

'Splosion Man 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 New Super Mario Brothers, 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 'Splosion Man 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:

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).

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.

3) Making other stuff explode (barrels, other players, some background devices) can give you a small increase in your jump distance.

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.

Now don't think that because there isn't much else to do than jump means the game is easy: far from it. 'Splosion Man 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.

'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 New Super Mario Brothers Wii 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...

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 local 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.

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...

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.

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.

Comic Jumper, on the other hand, is an entirely different experience. Part side-scroller, part beat-em-up, part twin-stick-shooter, Comic Jumper 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.

Comic Jumper'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, character. 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.

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.

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.

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!

I would be a little remiss for not at least mentioning the music - 'Splosion Man 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.

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 >-<

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 dreamed of making when they started the company.

In the end, Comic Jumper 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 Comic Jumper. The real shame here is that there will be no DLC to continue the Captain's wild adventures with.

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 Ms. 'Splosion Man coming soon, and the western puppeteering Gunstringer on the way for Kinect, there is definitely more to come.

Go and grab your riot gear

2010-11-10T18:00:00.003-06:00

What, you never played Crackdown? I'm not entirely surprised. Maybe you just wanted in on the Halo beta and didn't even notice it came with a whole game. 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. Crackdown 2 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.

The first Crackdown 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. GTA is comparable with the sandbox, but too bogged down in realism and story to just let you loose on the world. Saint's Row 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'. Crackdown 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.

Crackdown 2 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, Crackdown 2 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. Crackdown 2 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.)

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.

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?

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

1) Go to Absorption Unit, stand on a spot
2) Repeat #1 two more times
3) Go to Freak Lair, defend light bomb thing
4) Repeat #1-3 ten more times, or until you die of boredom, whichever comes first
5) Fight the hardly-challenging final mission and be underwhelmed by a terrible ending

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.

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.

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'.

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.

Overall, Crackdown 2 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.

The World's Worst Space Mining Simulator

2010-10-03T11:52:00.000-05:00

(Alternate title after patch: Mass of Text 2: Revenge of the Paragraph)

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 doing a review. On top of that, I can't let 'New Game +' 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?

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 Mass Effect 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 Mass Effect using the same weapon, the implementation just makes Mass Effect 2 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.

Perhaps the more insulting change, however, is the move of the dreaded 'regenerating health'. The first Mass Effect 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).

An interesting (but poorly executed) change made in Mass Effect 2 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 ME2, 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 Mass Effect 2's '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.

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.

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. Mass Effect's story is, for the most part, extremely non-linear, so why force the few linear plot points on the player so abruptly?

All the cons aside though, Mass Effect 2 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.

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 ME1. 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).

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 ME3.

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.

Another benefit to tossing the old inventory system? Money now actually means something! In ME1, 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 ME2 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.

Two words on this next improvement: NO MAKO! Need I say more?

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. ME2, 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 ME2 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).

Overall, Mass Effect 2 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 Mass Effect 3 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'.

*Only 'free' if you bought the game new, or purchased the 'Cerebus Network' download after purchasing the game new

I'm ASimPerson, and This is My Favorite Mass Effect Review on the Citadel

2010-05-04T04:06:00.000-05:00

Observant 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.

My plan here is to start off with Bioware's blockbuster sequel to, um, its 2007 blockbuster Mass Effect. For reference, here's Chris's original Mass Effect review.

Mass Effect 2 (PC)

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.

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.

The character abilities have also been simplified in ME2. Instead of allocating points to abilities, skills, and ~~force powers~~ 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.

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.

I will complain about the mining, though. Those who played the first game may remember the infamous mining subquest. Well, at least that one 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, a la the first game. (Good news: no Mako missions in this game!)

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 The Empire Strikes Back end than, say, the second Prince of Persia 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 Bioware 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.

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.

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 now 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.

asim's "tl;dr" summary: 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.

In Memoriam

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 "Juggernaut" 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, Bungie.

LOST Odyssey (Polar bears need not apply)

2010-05-03T17:58:00.000-05:00

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 Lost Odyssey: 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, Lost Odyssey will not disappoint, even when it does... disappoint.

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.

Where Lost Odyssey 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.

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.

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 Lost Odyssey.

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.

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 Final Fantasy 7 (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.

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.

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, Final Fantasy XIII, 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.

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 Blue Dragon 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.

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.

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 Legend of Dragoon 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 Lost Odyssey'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.

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.

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.

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.

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 Final Fantasy?", 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...)

What ya gonna play?

2010-02-15T22:38:00.002-06:00

GHOSTBUSTERS!

Whoops, sorry, got a little carried away there. But what can I say? When you are talking about the Ghostbusters, you can't help but get excited. From the very first moment a Ghostbusters 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 Ghostbusters in the past decade (or more)? This could definitely be interesting.

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?

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)

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 Ghostbuster 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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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 Ghostbusters 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.

As you can see, the game is far more 'mediocre' than most of the big blockbusters out there, but for whatever reason being a Ghostbusters 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 Mass Effect 2 or Bioshock 2 instead. Because - at least in the case of the former - that's exactly what I'm doing.

Speaking of - were you here looking for a review of Mass Effect 2? 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 Mass Effect 1 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 Bioshock.

Let's do the time warp again

2010-01-11T10:59:00.000-06:00

The 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 Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords, 'Splosion Man, and Penny Arcade Adventures have found a happy home with quality remakes and re-releases like Worms, Banjo-Kazooie and Uno. 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.

Leading up to its release, Braid 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 pomp and circumstance, Braid 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, Braid proves that you really can do some impressive things with limited space and budget. And here's how.

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.

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'. Braid does all this and more, 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.

There is one puzzle in a late level that did throw me for a loop and begin to frustrate because you think 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.

Perhaps the only true fault of gameplay is that there just isn't enough of it, but like Portal, 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 Half Life 2 Episodes or Portal) than try to forcibly extend the game for fear of it being "too short" (see: backtracking in Halo, excess travel in GTAIV, 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.

...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 Braid 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.

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. Braid 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.

Some say this is a reason to put Braid 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.

Graphically, Braid 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.

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". Braid 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. Penny Arcade Adventures ran into the same problem when they released Rain Slick for $20 earlier that year. Couple that with the noticeably short playtime and it really set some people off.

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.

To me, Braid 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 Braid 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!

A Killer Sequel

2009-12-25T03:01:00.000-06:00

Sequels 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.

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) eleven different Mario Party games - not even copy cats, mind you - since 1999, can you blame them?

The answer is no, especially since for every Mario Party or Madden (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 Half-Life 2. You would never know of the wonders of Hyrule in 3-D (or reimagined 2-D for that matter). There would be no Final Fantasy 7 to spark the JRPG craze, no Grand Theft Auto 3 to practically define 'sandbox' gaming as we know it. And of course, more recently, we wouldn't have an Assassin's Creed 2. And that would be a real shame.

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.

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 well.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 more. 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.

When all is said and done, Assassin's Creed 2 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, Assassin's Creed 2 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.

It'll leave you wishing for an apocalypse...

2009-12-20T16:09:00.000-06:00

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?).

I actually had someone request two reviews of me: one was for World of Goo, which I was more than happy to do, and Fallout 3. 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.

I will honestly say that, besides being aware of the Fallout 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 Fallout game was at PAX08, watching the Bethesda team show off their demos on the expo floor and going to the Fallout 3 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 freedom.

You see, I am one of those people that still has nightmares about Morrowind. I can not even begin to tell you how many times I have started Morrowind, 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 Morrowind 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.

So when people talked about Fallout being "like Oblivion" (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.

100 hours later, I think I can safely say that was a good decision (if not a really, really long one).

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 Morrowind.It really helps add to that sense of being involved in the story and a part of the world.

After your story really 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.

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 Half Life 2, but it has been very hard of late to find games that can truly overcome the stiff, robotic feel of physical movement and speech.

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 Fallout 3 is probably as expansive (if not more so) than Morrowind, 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.

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.

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!

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.

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).

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.

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 Fallout 3, 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.

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.

So what are you waiting for? Post Apocalyptic America is calling your name.

Proof that Physics is Phun!

2009-09-03T15:52:00.000-05:00

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 The Simpsons 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.

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.

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, World of Goo was born. Or Oozed. Or whatever.

Moving on.

It seems likely you've heard of World of Goo 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 Braid, 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, Halo 3 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. World of Goo 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, yes.

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 World of Goo, 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, World of Goo 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.

Where the game truly begins to shine is in it's deceivingly simple but additively challenging gameplay. At it's core, World of Goo 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.

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 Portal: 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, World of Goo will give you more play time than Portal.

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.

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.

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 World of Goo, 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.

All in all, World of Goo 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 Halo does and it may not sell as many copies as a Mario 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.

Judge not, lest ye be judged

2009-08-26T17:30:00.001-05:00

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 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 Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions, I had been relegated to patiently waiting for Square-Enix to develop a sequel to FFTA. 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).

Enter Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimore of the Rift. 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?

Storywise, FFTA2 is very similar to FFTA, 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 (FFTA, FFXII, 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 Final Fantasy games, but even the original FFT (for all it's confusion) was bizarre, twisted and interesting. 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.

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 FFTA: 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 FFXII 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 Fire Emblem greatly outshines the FFT 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.

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 FFTA 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.

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 FFTA.

But where FFTA swings the pendulum too far into punishment, FFTA2 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.

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 FFTA: laws becoming more of an inconvenience than a gameplay enhancing device.

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 actually like 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?

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.

Of course, to achieve this, you would also need to make the game actually difficult. 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, FFTA2 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 neither 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.

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.

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.

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 FFTA2 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.

If you've purchased neither, I would definitely recommend Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon (I guess that means I have to review that at some point) over FFTA2, but for anyone who enjoyed the first looking for a game that contains a lifetime and a half of solid (but not stellar) gameplay, FFTA2 would definitely be worth looking into.

You be the Judge

2009-07-16T08:00:00.001-05:00

The original plan was to try and review both FFTA and FFTA2, 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 Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced.

Final Fantasy Tactics 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.

Enter Final Fantasty Tactics Advance, considered by some 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.

FFTA'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.

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.

And since FFTA 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.

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.

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.

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 Fire Emblem, it feels strangely out of place in the FFTA world. Battles and strategies are different between the two games, and FFTA 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.

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.

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 FFX or the Breath of Fire series, and implemented correctly it could do wonders for FFTA. 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.

If you can put up with the law system, FFTA 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 FFT. 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.

While it is certainly not the strongest product wielding the Final Fantasy name, FFTA 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 Final Fantasy titles, most notable FFXII. 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 Super Ghouls and Ghosts, and I realize that not everyone will be willing to put up with the law system as I was.

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...

...which is why my next post (hopefully out sooner than this one, sorry) will be about the more recent sequel, FFTA2.

For Great Justice

2009-03-25T00:00:00.000-05:00

I've already talked once about the 'Ace Attorney' series (see this post), so a summation of this review is quite simply "more of the same". If you liked any of the previous Ace Attorney 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.

Ace Attorney got its start on the GBA in Japan with the Phoenix Wright 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.

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 Apollo Justice 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 Phoenix Wright 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.

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 Apollo Justice 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 Phoenix Wright 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.

Apollo Justice, 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.

Perhaps Apollo Justice'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 Phoenix Wright 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 Myst here.

* 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 Myst). 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 Sherlock Holmes 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.

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.

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 Apollo Justice 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 "Perfect Prosecutor" spinoff that's coming up should also help add some much needed variety to this otherwise stagnant series. That being said, Apollo Justice is a fine addition to the series and comes highly recommended for fans of the Phoenix Wright series, or fans of detective point and click adventures as a whole.

Dualing Banjos

2009-03-09T18:11:00.000-05:00

Despite 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.

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 Final Fantasy 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.

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. Ocarina of Time is constantly tagged as one of, if not the, the greatest game(s) of all time. Super Mario 64 gave the platformer life in 3D and developers today are still trying to surpass its greatness. Games like Star Fox 64 and F-Zero X 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.

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 Snake Rattle 'n' Roll and Battletoads) and some bigger hits on the SNES (Donkey Kong Country series, Killer Instinct), their N64 games are probably what they are most remembered for. Who doesn't remember the first time they played Goldeneye multiplayer, racing a pig in Diddy Kong Racing, playing counter-operative in Perfect Dark or blowing up buildings in Blast Corps? Even their more 'average' games - Donkey Kong 64 - were fun and enjoyable despite their weaknesses.

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 Super Mario 64, Banjo Kazooie was it. Both are experiences in their own way and should not be missed, but while Mario 64 is simply the application of a known 2D formula in a 3D world, Banjo Kazooie 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 Banjo Kazooie not only stand out from Mario 64, but excel in its own way.

---Banjo Kazooie---

Banjo Kazooie 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.

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.

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 gold. Or maybe oil. Actually, you struck goldoil.

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.

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 Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, 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 Banjo-Tooie, we'll see what Stop 'n' Swap was really supposed to do.

Overall, Banjo Kazooie 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 Mario 64 did. It gave Rare yet another successful franchise and paved the way for sequels (Banjo-Tooie), character crossovers (Diddy Kong Racing), GBA releases (Banjo Kazooie GBA and Banjo Pilot), ports (Banjo Kazooie on XBLA) and last but not least... reboots (Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts). 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.

--- Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts ---

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 Star Fox Adventures 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 (Grabbed by the Ghoulies, Kameo, Viva Pinata), although their poor attempts at ports (Conker: Live and Reloaded) and buggy launch titles that are prequels of their beloved classics (Perfect Dark Zero) 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.

While essentially a 'platformer' at heart, Nuts and Bolts 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, Mario 64. Mario 64 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 Nuts and Bolts, 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'.

It makes more sense with an explanation of gameplay. The essence of Nuts and Bolts 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.

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 Spore 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:

1) Adding extra units still ate up 'DNA' units, so you were essentially paying a hefty price for cosmetic features.
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.
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.

Nuts and Bolts 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 Twisted Metal 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".

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.

Unfortunately, you must approach Nuts and Bolts 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.

While achievements normally do an excellent job of extending the life of a game you enjoy, I found this especially true for Nuts and Bolts. 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.

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 do 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.

Despite my initial dissatisfaction with Nuts and Bolts 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 Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts is quite the deal.

Bring on the Apocolypse

2009-02-17T20:00:00.000-06:00

Better known in Japan as "It's a Wonderful World", The World Ends With You (from now on abbreviated at TWEWY) 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, TWEWY stands tall above the rest as a unique and thoroughly refreshing experience that is prime for... well, creating sequels, prequels and spinoffs.

For those not 'in the know', TWEWY 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:

- Fantasy setting (small minority go "sci-fi"-esque or at least show off technology of some kind, see FFVII/FFVIII, Star Ocean, Xenogears, etc)
- Linear gameplay/story
- 1 man/team bent on saving the entire world
- Turn based combat
- Random battles
- Level Grinding
- Stats are generally HP/Mana
- Has the words "Final Fantasy" or "Dragon Quest" in the title, followed by a number

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 (Eternal Sonata's uqinue battle system, FFXII's 'mmo-lite' feel, Kingdom Heart'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).

Even for the 'kings of JRPG', Square-Enix, creating a new RPG that is not a Final Fantasy or a Dragon Quest 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 Final Fantasy XII, 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, FFXIII. What have you heard more about, and which are you generally more excited for? Star Ocean IV, Last Remnant, Infinite Undiscovery, or FFXIII? They are all Square-Enix properties, but I'm pretty sure the numbers would stack decidely in the favore of FFXIII.

When you can't get even your own game to sell without the 'Final Fantasy' title, you start doing clever things like making quick sequels (FFX-2), re-releases (FFI-VI), or even remakes (FFIII/FFIV). 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 (FFXII: Revenant Wings, FFVII: Crisis Core). 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.

This is part industry, part consumer and just part normal business. Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest 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.

Meanwhile, great games like Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, Eternal Sonata 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 FF and DQ. Just as an example, the IGN review for Lost Odyssey mentions 'Final Fantasy' 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?

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, GTAIV and MGS4) 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 developers '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?

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.

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 Infinite Undiscovery and The Last Remnant, 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 Final Fantasy' mentality), but every now and then you'll get a diamond in the rough that actually outshines even the best that FF's and DQ'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 Chrono Trigger, arguably one of the best RPGs of all time.

This is one of the main things that makes TWEWY 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?

- Fantasy setting (small minority go "sci-fi"-esque or at least show off technology of some kind, see FFVII/FFVIII, Star Ocean, Xenogears, etc)

TWEWY 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.

- 1 man/team bent on saving the entire world

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 TWEWY creates one that is unique and interesting without being over ridiculous.

- Turn based combat

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.

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 cry.

- Random battles

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?

- Level Grinding

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.

- Stats are generally HP/Mana

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.

- Has the words "Final Fantasy" or "Dragon Quest" in the title

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.

TWEWY 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 FFXIII 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!

Bioshock actually shocks me

2009-01-06T17:45:00.000-06:00

I'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 Half Life series, to due it's excellent pacing, puzzles, story, characters and overall polish. When Halo 3 came out - one of the biggest FPS releases since, well, Halo 2 - 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 own it. And while I do own Team Fortress 2 - 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.

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 Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4 and was not rivited by either, what could this no-name offshoot offer me that these two behemoths did not?

When I received Bioshock 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.

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 Bioshock, it is hidden and masked so well that it really did not bother or frustrate me as much as normal.

That may be, of course, because Bioshock is not 'just' and FPS. It is an experience, 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 Half Life 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 yourself, 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.

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 nice and does the game service, in this case that's more than enough.

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 Metal Gear nor as run and gun as Halo but it finds a happy medium and gives you the power to play it as you like.

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, Halo 3 took me a paltry 6 hours to beat, Call of Duty 4 clocked in at a slightly more impressive 8. Multiplayer? Barely touched either, didn't care. Bioshock 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.

It's not all 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.

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 frustration 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.

Overall, the one thing you can say about the game is that it delivers. 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 have.

---

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 choose 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 Resident Evil 5 hits in march, which gives me a good bit of time to work through my back catalogue.

Currently playing:
WoW:WotLK (PC)
Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice (DS)
Professor Layton and the Curious Villiage (DS)
Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn (Wii)
Lost Odyssey (360)
Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts (360)
Fable II (360)

What should be next (no particular order):
The World Ends With You (DS)
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (DS)
Spore (PC)
Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced 2 (DS)
Rock Band 2 (360)
Banjo Kazooie (XBLA)

(If only it were) Eternal Sonata

2008-12-03T14:01:00.000-06:00

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...

This time I'm going to skip forward a few games (sorry TWEWY, your time will come) because I just finished a game (Eternal Sonata, 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.

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 easily overlooked.

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 (Smash Brothers, Mario Kart), and even games that look 'good' in HD but really don't stand out too much due to poor art direction or bland environments (Enchanted Arms has the resolution but very little inspiring art, Gears of War 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. World of Warcraft continues to impress me with what they can do with so little horsepower (as Blizzard has always done time and time again), The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker showed us just what games could do with cell shading and facial expressions, and the new Prince of Persia 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 Eternal Sonata, 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.

Eye candy aside, Eternal Sonata 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 (FFXII) and save a game from even the most pathetic writing (Enchanted Arms). For almost 7 years, my favorite rpg battle system belonged to the increible Legend of Dragoon (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 Super Mario RPG 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 limitations 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. Enchanted Arms 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 extensively for finishing off foes quickly and with big numbers.

But, I think I was trying to talk about Eternal Soanta...

Eternal Sonata 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.

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...

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.

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.

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.

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. That 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.

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.

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).

Overall, Eternal Soanta 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 FF7, Xenogears or Legend of Dragoon). 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.

As for what's next, I'd love to sing the praises of The World Ends With You but perhaps I will take a break from my usual JRPG/SRPG lovefest and review Castlevania or Spore.

Currently playing:
WoW:WotLK (PC)
Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced 2 (DS)
Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice (DS)
Professor Layton and the Curious Villiage (DS)
Rock Band 2 (360)
Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn (Wii)

What should be next:
The World Ends With You (DS)
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (DS)
Spore (PC)
Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced 2 (DS)

How on earth did I miss reviewing Bioshock (360)?

Real life, or larger than life?

2008-10-24T12:58:00.000-05:00

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 less often - maybe I should try it the other way around for once?

Comparing GTAIV and Saint's Row 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 GTAIV) 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 GTAIV and Saint's Row 2 - especially considering Saint's Row is now a proven franchise and it has had more time to develop properly on the platform. That is, of course, if Saint's Row was even worth playing in the first place. So was it? Or was it all just hype?

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, GTAIII was to Sandbox games as FFVII 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 GTAIII 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.

After that came Vice City which, in my humble opinion, is the best of the three GTAIII games. It added alot to the existing GTAIII forumla (motorcycles, for instance) but it's best feature was improving the story and the characters. GTAIII'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.

San Andreas 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.

OK, so on to the games at hand:

I received Saint's Row 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 Vice City long ago enough that nostalgia was starting to set in. I was afraid for Saint's Row 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 Vice City) 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 Saint's Row it really serves no purpose other than to be over the top and offensive, which I found to be very annoying.

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 GTAIV. 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 GTAIII 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.

Fortunately, for a sandbox game, gameplay is much more important than story. I was OK with GTAIII'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 Vice City, and I believe Rockstar learned a valuable lesson from the trip ups with San Andreas's slow, boring, tedious gameplay. Since Saint's Row 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.

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 imperative that you interfere with the player's game as little as possible. The beauty of a sandbox game is freedom - the ability to go wherever, do whatever, whenever, and for no reason other than because you can. 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 GTAIV's greatest flaw, but I'll get to that later.

So for all of Saint's Row'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 Crackdown 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 game, Saint's Row delivers an enjoyable sandbox experience that is certianly more fun than San Andreas 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.

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.

Grand Theft Auto IV 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.

It is unfortunate, then, that they forgot you wanted to have fun while you play it.

For all the praise I can give it, GTAIV boils down to perhaps nothing more than an exercise in extreme 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 webcomics). Compared to other GTA games, GTAIV stands out technically and in overall presentation but just falls completely on it's face in terms of gameplay.

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 oncoming traffic.

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, none of these facts make it fun, 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 Crackdown, although even that became a little more manageble once you 'skilled up'. When you make perhaps the largest portion of the game - the Auto - 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.

That is, of course, assuming the rest of the game played well. Which it doesn't.

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: IF YOU CHOOSE TO DO SO. 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?

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, regardless of your current location. 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.

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? Drunk Driving? 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.

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.

These two things alone make me never want to replay GTAIV (something I did repeatedly with GTA III and Vice City) 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 Dead Rising; 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.

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.

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.

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 GTAIII 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.

You know, it really makes you think. Assassin's Creed is, in many ways, in the same boat as GTAIV. 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 GTAIV's horrendous driving. But, here we are, GTAIV 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 Assassin's Creed recieved such terrible marks and GTAIV received such high praise.

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? Saint's Row. Looking for gritty realism, deep characters and a stunning narrative? GTAIV. You'll probably have more fun with Saint's Row (even if you can't bring yourself to admit it) and you'll definitely remember the story and characters from GTAIV more. My recommendation? Play Saint's Row to have fun, GTAIV's story can wait until it's bargain bin. Or maybe pick up Saint's Row 2? I don't know, haven't played it yet...

Here's a breif glimpse into the future: Hopefully, that won't be 2009...

Currently playing:
WoW (in anticipation of WOTLK)
Eternal Sonata (360)
Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced 2 (DS)
Rock Band 2 (360)

What should be next:
The World Ends With You (DS)
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (DS)
Spore (PC)
Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced 2 (DS)

Nintendo Juggernauts

2008-08-19T14:00:00.000-05:00

I'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 - Smash Brothers Brawl and Mario Kart. They may be 'old hat' by now, but as 2 of the biggest names in the Nintendo arsenal (in company with the likes of Zelda, Mario and Metroid) these games may remain the last 'high profile' remake that Nintendo churns out for a while (Mario, Zelda, and Metroid having already debuted on the Wii).

Since it came first, I'll start with Smash Brothers Brawl. The anticipation for this game could not have been higher - melee was perhaps my most played multiplayer game of last generation, competing only with World of Warcraft in terms of time played with friends. The original Smash Brothers game helped to define the N64 as the multiplayer console of choice (along with Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, F-Zero X and Mario Kart 64) and Smash Brothers Melee 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 Brawl to some extent.

In many ways, Brawl 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 Melee 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.

Now, I don't think Brawl 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 GTAIV (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. Brawl 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.

To me, Brawl 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 Melee to play Smash Brothers, there's no reason to unless you prefer some of the subtle nuances in Melee's (broken) physics system. From here on out, Brawl 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, Smash Brothers Brawl 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.

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.

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.

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.

All these faults aside, however, the Smash Brothers experience is still not one to be missed. Whenever I have 4 friends over, Brawl 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.

Now it's time for (yet another) largely multiplayer affair: Mario Kart Wii. 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 Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Mario Kart 64 and Smash Brothers 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 (Mario Strikers? Pokemon? Even Brawl was troubled for some people) so hearing that Mario Kart was going online with 12 people was not met with the same enthusiasm as perhaps I should have had.

The Mario Kart 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 Double Dash (despite actually enjoying the dual-kart mechanic) and the Super Circuit (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.

I'm not an enthusiastic fan of racing games, and a game like Mario Kart - 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 some 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.

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.

Unfortunately for Mario Kart Wii, 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 Brawl (or CoD4, Halo, Rock Band, etc) than they will Mario Kart. However, for the 'casual' gamer, such as my parents or younger siblings, Mario Kart 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 Tiger Woods and your mother is looking for something more social than Brain Age, Mario Kart Wii represents that perfect Nintendo blend of simplicity and depth that will help make your family holidays that much more enjoyable.

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.

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 Eternal Sonata and FFTA2) 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.

In the end, Mario Kart Wii remains a very good game that is held back by a flood of other multiplayer games (Smash Bros, WoW, Rock Band) and a (sometimes) aggravating single player experience, which is feel has always been the case for Mario Kart 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 Smash Brothers). It has usurped Tiger Woods Wii 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 Rock Band on Expert, fragging each other in Call of Duty 4 or duking it out in Super Smash Brothers. 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 Mario Kart Wii a 'bad game'. It just makes it a niche one, and it fills it quite nicely.

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:

Currently playing:
Eternal Sonata (360)
Spore (PC)
Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced 2 (DS)

What should be next:
GTA IV (360)
Saint's Row (360)
The World Ends With You (DS)
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (DS)

Looks like next blog may be my comparison of GTAIV to Saint's Row. You might find my conclusions somewhat surprising.

Buy 1, get 2 free!

2008-08-11T17:40:00.000-05:00

Recovering from my China trip and my bike accident has put me ridiculously behind schedule, more on writing reviews than playing games, so I'll give a 3 for 1 deal here. One time only. Maybe. (Saint's Row and GTAIV will likely be a 2 for 1 as they'll be compared together anyway).

First let's start with the bad news: Undertow.

First of all, I only got this because it was free, and boy, am I glad that was the case. While the game itself is not terrible, it has so many flaws that you can not enjoy it as the sum of its parts, but instead hate it for what it attempts to be yet falls flat on its face doing. Please understand that, when I say this, this genre in no way appeals to me so it is fighting an uphill battle from the start. I am certainly willing to accept new genres if they are presented well or end up being fun (Half-life or Goldeneye, for instance, despite my dislike overall for FPSs').

Perhaps Undertow was too big for the restrictions of XBLA. This doesn't seem likely, though, as graphically it is very impressive - especially considering size limitations and that fact that it is 3d. Unfortunately, 3d on XBLA is like 3d on the DS or n64, at least in terms of quality. I'd rather have an artistically well done 2d game that uses the HD resolutions of my TV than a 3d game that, while impressive, looks awkward and poor at higher resolutions. Some 3d games can live within the size limitations caused by 3d (see: Penny Arcade game, although that is a different story) but I still probably would've preferred a sharper 2-d based game even with that. 3d games with restrictive graphic requirements must be done by a very artistically talented team (i.e. most anything Blizzard has ever made and some of the "3d remakes" done by Square-Enix on the DS) in order to be pulled off well.

Graphics in this case, however, are irrelevant. The game itself is very uninteresting, the gameplay was wonky and hard to figure out (the tutorial, as long as it is, hardly helps), and overall the experience falls flat. I certainly couldn't get into the single player campaign and, even though I beat it, only did so to try and see if the game had any redeeming qualities later once you unlocked stuff (it does not). Two player almost made it worse - with the exception that the game could now be "MST3K'd" - and we never even made it past the first few levels.

Maybe I'm just hating on the genre. Maybe I'm not competitive enough for the multiplayer or not interested enough in the "deep" strategy (hint: faster == less powerful, SO DEEP). Maybe I'm being unfair... but that's OK, because I didn't like the game and that's how it is. I've certainly played worse on XBLA (Yaris, I'm looking at you) but even for free, I couldn't really see myself recommending this. It shows some promise but compared to, say, Geometry Wars it is hardly worth the investment of your time, let alone your money.

Next up, the good news: Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness.

If you've never heard of Penny Arcade, you should go online and read some of the comics assuming you like any of the following (more is better):

- Video Games
- Technology
- Cartoon Violence
- Vulgarity
- Big Words

The Penny Arcade Game acts as a sort of 3d cartoon, where you are thrown into the world with well known heroes Tycho "I like big words" Brahe and Jonathan "Simpleton" Gabriel (nicknames my own). The plot is unique and the humor is spot-on for the series, and the animation parts are even extraordinarily well done, especially when you consider it was done in Flash and not by Gabe. Tycho does some of his best writing in this game, using the narrator, item descriptions and sequence of events to both mystify and humor you at the same time. Gabe's artwork is well mimicked and translates decently into 3d - the characters at first glance don't look quite right but as time goes on (and you focus less on them) you become more accustomed to it. Gameplay is solid and incorporates an interesting twist on the turn based RPG genre, similar to how the Paper Mario series works (timed buttons to gain extra defense or miss attacks, minigames to do extra damage with special attacks, et al). The learning curve is quite steep and the timing on some attacks feels very unnatural and is hard to get down, but if you play enough and pay enough attention you should be well prepared to face the final boss. I especially like how items are actually useful in this game (in most RPGs they are ignored as they are a waste of your turn).

The problem with the game honestly is not the presentation, gameplay, story or graphics... but price. For $20 - a kingly sum on the XBLA - Penny Arcade Adventures can make you feel like you aren't getting what you paid for. The entire game takes a paltry 3 hours to beat, assuming you do 100% of everything (that include running around looking at all the item descriptions). The number of character customizations you have available are almost pathetic, although that is probably because every item has to be translated into 2d for the flash movies. The replay value is slim to nil as the number of enemies is pre-set and your level caps out 15, presumably so you can carry your character over to the next episode. While those 2-3 hours you play will be filled with laugh out loud moments and some solid, challenging RPG action one can't help but feel that the game is... lacking. Compared to the next highest price game on XBLA, Puzzle Quest, which offers dozens if not HUNDREDS of hours of gameplay with an RPG twist, it's a hard sell to make. I played through PAA and enjoyed it, but it really would be up to you as to whether or not you think 2-3 hours with of Penny Arcade humored gameplay would be worth the investment.

And last but certianly not least, the Great: Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords.

I'll be upfront and honest. I haven't beaten it yet. I'm probably only halfway there. And yet I've already put over 20 glorious hours in this game. It is really hard to try and explain what is so great about Puzzle Quest, when I first heard of the concept and saw screen shots I personally thought it was nothing more than a flash-based "Pop Cap" like causal game being pawned off to the DS crowd. Then I lost one friend to the game - so much so that he stopped playing WoW, perhaps the most addictive MMO available today, just to play more Puzzle Quest. Then another friend. Then another. I even saw the Penny Arcade guys write several comics about it. And while I'm a stubborn guy, I'm also open to the idea that sometimes I can be wrong. I tried finding it on the DS almost a year later - no dice, couldn't find it anywhere, even used. Then I saw it was available on the 360's XBLA in all it's HD glory and for a measly $15.

After playing it, I probably would've paid $30 or more for it. As is, $15 is practically a steal. It is a game that just does everything well and while it may not excel in any one area and has flaws, the overall game is still incredibly enjoyable. The gameplay mechanic - essentially "match gems" - is simple enough. As a big fan of puzzle games, this might have been enough to keep my interest, and yet, it gets better. They take this simple gem matching game and wrap a deep RPG-esque battle system around it, complete with Hit Points, Mana, casting spells (offensive and defensive), leveling up, buying items and even item creation. The system seems to be much better tuned on the xbox, where some of the super-powerful spells on the DS have been toned back to be more reasonable (or have cooldowns). There are several classes to choose from, each with a different approach to how they do damage or how they fight and each requiring a unique approach to how you match gems. I played a druid, who relies more on green and yellow magic to do damage, and so it comes with certian benefits (more powerful spells than say a warrior) but more weaknesses (relies on mana so early levels and enemies that drain mana or do damage based on mana reserves are more dangerous). The length of the game is not in the puzzle system, which may take only a few minutes or possibly 10-15 if you play more conservatively, but in the fact that these smaller puzzled games are strung together over an RPG-like "arc" where you play game after game to level up your character, obtain new items, complete storylines or quests, or take over towns. There are also different "twists" on the game mechanic for special rewards, such as clearing a board of preset gems to "capture" enemies (you can then learn spells from them), collecting "scrolls" for new spells or "anvils" for new items without getting a game over and even playing with a specific turn time limit to level up your mount.

As such, puzzle quest is not the type of game where you sit down and play it all in one sitting (although this theoretically could be done), but the smaller gameplay sizes and a feeling of progression make this game very easy to pick up and put down again. So not only will the game last you 40 (or more!) hours of true, "human time" gameplay but you will likely play it in between playing other things (or, if on the DS/PSP, on the go) which will help prevent the game from feeling too repetitive. The possibility of playing as another class adds even more to the replay value, as the game mechanics would play so differently that you would be more inclined to find it interesting than if the differences were more cosmetic or subtle. Different classes require very different strategies and completely alter how you play the board and which enemies are harder/easier to you.

The game is by no means "perfect", but then again no game is. The actual "story" feels weak and trivial given the size of the game. The story is not "horrible" and in no way gets in the way of actually playing the game, but I doubt that many (if anyone) are playing the game for the story. Often times you will feel that the game is not truly "random" and that the computer seems to almost know what is going to fall down when they make a move, but perhaps this is equal parts paranoia and truth. Obviously if played for too long at one time, the game can begin to feel repetitive, and this is not helped by the fact that random monsters are spawned on the road. As the game world gets bigger and bigger, more monsters will spawn than one could actually hope to keep off the map, meaning that getting from point A to B (especially for quests that require travel over long distances) could require that you beat 10+ enemies on the way there and another 3-4 that have respawned before you could make it back. When you are attempting to get somewhere (a town to buy new spells or make new items) or when you are trying to finish quests, this can become frustrating as it feels forced. The ability to "skip" over these random battles would have been a great addition to the game, even if it was limited to monsters you had already beaten several times. Some of the final-level items you can make also require a painstakingly long amount of time to "craft" and you can lose hours and hours attempting to create since, even if you get a "game over" with only 1 anvil or scroll left, you must start all over. When this is caused by the random placement of items on the board instead of a mistake by the player, this is especially frustrating. Overall, its flaws are forgivable given the price and the amount of fun gameplay and replay value offered.

I'm already looking forward to the promised XBLA expansion, including new classes, spells and areas, as well as the true sequel, Galatrix. I missed the boat the first time, but I'll be sure to make it this time around.

Since you last heard from me I've started (and promptly finished!) Bioshock, perhaps the most refreshing FPS I have played in some time. I've also taken Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2 for a spin (25+ hours) and am generally pleased. The World did NOT end with me, as I have beaten The World Ends With You and I've also started the (so far incredibly nice looking) Eternal Sonata, who has already piqued my interest with crisp, bright HD graphics and an interesting spin on your standard RPG battle system. This also includes games that I'm way behind reviewing (Mario Kart, Smash Bros, GTAIV, Saint's Row) so be on the look out for more in the coming weeks and months.

Also, going to PAX at the end of the month. That should be a blast!

Mass of Text

2008-05-24T23:34:00.000-05:00

I've been playing "catch up" on the Xbox 360 since I purchased it last November, and so many good games have been coming out for it lately that I seem to be farther behind than I was when I first got it. Assassin's Creed, Rockband, Mass Effect, GTAIV, Beautiful Katamari, Lost Odyssey and Penny Arcade Adventures have all been released since I started playing the 360, and those were piled on top of the nearly half-dozen older 360 titles I was trying to dig through. With the exception of Lost Odyssey, I've at least made an attempt to play all the 360 titles I own, so I may actually be nearing the end of my stack. Of course, that doesn't include the Wii titles I am still chipping away at (Fire Emblem, Mario Kart) or would like to start (Baiten Kaitos [technically a Gamecube game], Okami, Boom Blox, No More Heroes, Lost Winds, My Life as a King... amoung others) or the dozens and dozens of DS games I am trying desperately to catch up on (just finished Dawn of Sorrows, although I got the "bad" ending so I may go back and try to get the better one, trying to start The World Ends With You). By then it will be fall, with its promise of AAA 360 titles (Banjo Kazooie, I'm looking at you) and possible surprises from Nintendo on Wii/DS. Just when I get a chance to catch my breath, things will start to really heat back up again.

That being said, however, I seem to be moving through games a little faster than reviews, which is why I am here: This week's item of interest is Mass Effect which, surprisingly, may be relevant to some because it is coming out on PC soon. So, allow us to begin, without delay!

Mass Effect

Mass Effect, at first glance, is BioWare's attempt to take your largest 360 install base (people who love FPS's) and entice them into playing an RPG. The battle system is not your standard RPG turn-based battle system: it is much more fluid and action oriented, leaving a large majority of the 'RPGis' portions to be done between battles. I've personally never played Knights of the Old Republic (a travesty, according to many) but I hear the battle system is similar to how those play. You can still 'pause' combat, when you are attempting to make some kind of choice - to use an ability or switch weapons, for instance - but generally speaking your battles will be much more fluid and fast paced than standard RPG's tend to be.

In many ways, I approve of these kind of steps forward in the genre. The RPG essentials are there - leveling up, inventory management, special skills, party members, experience, etc - but instead of being wrapped around a battle system that has been designed, perfected, and then run into the ground repeatedly, Bioware introduces a completely new, fast paced battle system. Think of it as an advancement of the genre - like Active Time Battle or FFXII's Gambit system - but instead of trying to improve upon the old model, they just threw it out and started from scratch. While I do love standard, turn based combat (Blue Dragon, FF everything, etc) it is nice to see a new twist to the battle system every now and then. Several other games have proven these kind of action-oriented RPGs could work (Diablo, etc) so it's no surprise that Mass Effect's approach works very well.

That is to say, of course, it works whenever you are actually able to battle. The amount of preparation necessary to keep your party up to date and ready to battle is borderline insane. The weapon customization options available to you are deep, so deep that you will often find yourself lost in a whirlpool of tungsten bullets and medikits. With a possible 4 weapons, dozens and dozens of customizable weapon mods and ammo, and 2 other (current) party members to keep track of, you will often (I can not stress that enough) find yourself sitting there sifting through all of your items and messing with your party's equipment for 30 minutes or more. Add to this that you are almost always swamped with items after each mission (one look into a medicine cabinet, next thing you know you are knee deep in Assault Rifles... no wonder these people we came to find are all dead) and the sweet, delicious, run-around-and-kill-stuff parts of the game are completely overshadowed by the constant "YOU HAVE TOO MANY ITEMS, PLEASE SELL SOME" spam you see each time you decide to look down at something. This makes it difficult to play Mass Effect for extended periods of time, as you will slowly begin to become annoyed by the constant barrage of seemingly meaningless, yet utterly important, inventory management.

It does not help, of course, that the menu structure and buy/sell mechanics surrounding items are, at best, an annoyance and, at worst, an obstacle. Sometimes I felt like my character should level up in mercantilism (which, FYI, is not really a stat) because of the work it took me just to search for a new upgrade or sell all of my unwanted items. With no discernible way to search, sort, or even organize the nearly 200 items your characters are dragging with them through each of their dangerous, life threatening misadventures, the process of trying to determine whether an item is worth saving or selling becomes not only unbearable, but moot. You are likely to stumble upon 50 new weapon mods and 20 new guns on your next mission to save someone's puppy (who knows how), so if you did really need it you are bound to run into it (or something better!) during the next fun part of the game. If the game was even the slightest bit more intelligent on how it managed your items - let's start by letting me equip items while at the store, or even just letting me see what my party members are currently wearing while shopping on the Normandy - it might become less of a chore and more of a chance to really customize and tweak your party for each new planet. As it stands now, however, your best bet is probably to just plow through as much as possible, selling anything you pick up as you go. Once you start having a really hard time with enemies, spend 20 minutes (the same amount of time it would have taken you even if you had been updating all this time...) and put your spoils of war to good use.

Another gripe on the battle system is your squad mates which, as is the standard with co-operative AI, are completely useless at best and often a hindrance. I cannot begin to count the number of times my teammates stepped into my line of fire, or would just blindly run out and get killed by the enemy. Other times, they would take cover in some of the better positions... and then do nothing (or next to nothing). The game is nice enough to let you at least manually control their special moves, which is nice in pinch when you could really use another classes ability other than your own. It makes you wonder, though, why the enemy AI does not suffer from the same fate. Ruthless and cruel, the enemy (especially in the early levels) seems to dauntingly out-number you at every turn and often times you end up dead, a fate only further frustrated by the poorly designed auto save feature.

I suppose, however, that is not to say that the AI is crafty more so than the tutorial is, well, non-existent. Even for someone who has been a gamer all his life, the endless list of buttons, menus, options and skills is available to you almost instantaneously, and without proper introduction. In one sense this is nice, because as you replay the game you can get right back in to the action and don't have to waste hours trying to force your way through a tutorial, but a baptism by fire isn't exactly the best way to try to introduce your users to the game mechanics. It took me nearly 10 hours of gameplay before I realized that my mobile APC had a cannon on it - a fact discovered by sheer accident. Of course, perhaps the reason they never explained the APC portions are because it handles so poorly and drives so slowly that maybe giving you something to try and learn on your own would mask the otherwise mediocre gaming experience. Traveling on foot had its quirks (not being able to "run" unless in combat, constant interruptions by loads and, worse, elevators) but trying to drive, let alone fight, in that giant hunk of worthless metal was torture. Add to that the fact that the giant sandworms (or whatever they were) can kill you while in your vehicle in one hit (despite taking nearly a dozen to take down) and the experience as a whole can be quite frustrating.

Aside from the amount of time you have to spend customizing your characters, the overall game system is very well done. The number of different choices available to you - from character customization to item customization to even dialouge options - keep much of the dialog feeling fresh and adds a lot more credibility to the fact that you are, indeed, role playing. In many RPG's, your characters are on a set, linear path that you hardly (if ever) deter from. In large part, the story has been decided and the means by which it occurs was chosen long before you created your character. While much of this is still true in Mass Effect (the game does seem to end the same regardless of your choices) the path that you take to get there can be wildly different depending on if you act as a paragon or a renegade. Having played the game through twice, with the exception of a few major plot points, I felt like I was playing a completely different game. My first time through I was a female soldier class and acted in a largely paragonical manner (is that even a word?), while my second time through I was a male biotic who was as much of a Renegade as I could possibly be. The dialog trees, missions, and even character reactions to me were as different as night and day. Of course, this means nothing if you do not want to replay the game in the first place, which could be feasible if you have had enough of the tired inventory management system. With the story playing out in a totally different manner, and playing as a biotic being almost polar opposite to playing as a soldier, the game was as enjoyable as it was the first time I played through it - perhaps even more so since the biotic class relies on weapons much less and so it was not as important to nit-pick with my inventory.

Of course, if you don't like story, you might as well just give up right now, because Mass Effect stuffed to the brim with story - character development (dialog), plot development ("cut scenes") and background (text) are pervasive throughout the entirety of the game, from start to finish. Every planet you visit has some unique summary written about it, from a few sentences to several paragraphs depending on it's importance, which is no mean feat considering the massive size of the Mass Effect universe. You can talk with your squad mates between missions to learn more about their past, get their thoughts on the last mission, or just chat (the "just chat" options, however, are few in number and largely repetitious). To play Mass Effect without indulging yourself in it's back story and characters would be to rob yourself of the very essence that makes Mass Effect so unique and enticing, but at the same time spending 45+ minutes after each battle to try and see if your lieutenant has heard back from her sister about how school is going on Earth can become very tiresome very fast when all you want to do is gain more levels and kill more stuff (all the worse when you also have to upgrade weapons, sell items, and move between galaxies, all of which take up even more of your time). In some ways, Mass Effect is like a roller coaster: you trudge through the slow, uphill climb for the few fleeting moments of pleasure you get from the downhill rush.

As predicted, the whole Mass Effect "sex scene" story was blown way out of proportion, almost to the point of being pathetic. Someone at Bioware needs to get an award for genius in marketing because this probably drove more publicity for the game and spurred more sales than any other campaign I've seen in recent years. The scenes - neither of which are very long or, for that matter, explicit - have less in them that one might see on prime time TV (say, in your standard episode of LOST). Disappointing to some, I'm sure, but in the end nothing more than a clever marketing ploy.

Mass Effect, while by no means perfect, is overall a very enjoyable game. If you can take the game at a leisurely pace and really stop and experience the world BioWare has created, you will constantly be amazed and surprised at the amount of effort that has gone into creating the game. Of course, if you are impatient, or used to the speed and action of your more standard FPS's, Mass Effect will feel more like work than it is worth. I've personally played through the game twice, and could easily see myself playing through it a third time to play as the engineer class later on, which is a testament to just how much fun I found the underlying gameplay mechanics to be, but it is perhaps one of the most frustrating "good games" I've ever played. You will often times feel that the game is dragging, or even fighting you tooth and nail (bad AI, terrible menus, etc) but if you can overlook a few flaws and stick with the game you are in for one great roller coaster ride. Perhaps, when they release the game for PC this week, they will have many of these problems fixed. If they find a way to make the 360 version better, well, that's just icing on an already delicious cake.

Currently playing:
The World Ends With You (DS)
Crystal Chronicles:Ring of Fates (DS)
Mario Kart (Wii)
Tons of new DS games while in China.

What should be next (Still working on Mario Kart, sorry):
Penny Arcade Adventures: Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness (XBLA)
GTA IV (360)
Puzzle Quest (DS + XBLA)
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (DS)
Saint's Row (360)
Smash Brothers Brawl (Wii)
Undertow, (XBLA)

Bold games and completed and most likely. Saint's Row and GTAIV will probably be done together to show how they compare.

What is it good for?

2008-05-10T01:40:00.000-05:00

Advance Wars: Days of Ruin (DS)

Please forgive me if, after reading this, you believe me to be a hypocrite, but the truth must be told, if only to absolve my own guilty conscience. Despite my love for S-RPGs, I have never owned a copy of Advance Wars until Days of Ruin. In fact, I never even played one until Dual Strike, and even then, only in passing. Despite knowing about Advance Wars since it first came to America on the GBA, I've never been terribly interested in the game. Perhaps it was the fact that other games caught more of my attention and Advance Wars got lost in the noise. Whatever reasons I have for commiting this foul, evil sin are no excuse: I have forsaken the path of strategy and tactics and shall forever regret doing so.

So, when Days of Ruin came out, you can understand if I merely shrugged it off as "another" Advance Wars game. Pile on top of that how most reviews were calling it the worst of the series so far, and I now have even less reason to become interested in the franchise. I was wrong; so very, very wrong.

When my friend purchased the game, it is as though his DS became permanently attached to his hand, his stylus flying here or there in a frenzy, attempting to destroy enemies and save allies in S-rank fashion. I've never seen someone so engrossed in a game before. As he played more and more, I began to feel "the itch". I had just played Enchanted Arms, which had already gotten me thinking about grids and turns and such, and was looking for a new DS game to play after finishing Trials and Tribulations. At first, the only reason I purchased the game was to play multiplayer with him. Now, I wish I could find a way to go back in time and play all the other Advance Wars when they came out, as my ignorance has made me miss out on a great gem of a game. If you like strategy games at all, think of this as a ringing endorsement and don't even waste the time reading the rest, just go buy it and enjoy it. If you are actually interested in why I like it, then by all means continue reading.

Advanced Wars is perhaps the tactical antethesis of Fire Emblem (another game by Intelligent Systems) which allows it to create it's own niche. In Fire Emblem, you are given a certian number of units and must face innumerable foes and insurmountable obstacles without any of them dying, lest they be lost forever to their digital grave. A proper defense, slow advances and countless item choices are the path one walks to excel at the Fire Emblem series of games. Advanced Wars, on the other hand, usually allows you to collect resources and build units so losing one or two units over a battle is no big deal. This changes the tactical approach to the games to be drastically different.

Perhaps you will use an infantry to lure a strong enemy unit into the firing range of your artillary, or send a recon trudging through enemy territory on a suicide mission to determine enemy positions and unit strength. If the enemy has placed his strength in air units, you can begin to produce anti-air and easily wipe the floor with him. However, since they can build units too, their strategy can be altered at a moment's notice so you must always be on your guard. This kind of dynamic gives the game a more 'RTS' feel, without the pressure of making decisions in real time. Each move can be planned out but, like chess, you must always be thinking several moves ahead in order to anticipate possible counters that your enemy will employ. This is only somewhat true in tactical games like Fire Emblem or Shining Force, since enemy units often recieve reinforcements and you must always be prepared for a surprise, but generally those types of games involve predetermined unit deployment and unit choice so you know your strategy ahead of time. In Advanced Wars, every level is different, which greatly adds to the replay value.

The campaign seems rather standard for the genre, with unit portraits that talk to one another to set up some scenario for the next battle. The storyline, for the most part, goes off without surprises and while it does not wow in any way, it gets the job done. Technically speaking the campaign is nothing more than a fancy wrapper palced around different scenarios, as there are also several dozen more maps that are treated as "training excercises" by the game's story but are in most ways no different from the campaign maps aside from missing some prewritten story. With the campaign levels, this totals to over 50 different maps, which means you will be playing the game for a long time to come. The last level, however, is incredibly difficult. Nothing I've ever played compares to the chaos and challenge of the final level in this game, and this is not a good thing. There are challenges which

That is, if there wasn't multiplayer. With local wifi play (to battle against friends) and even Nintendo Wifi play (to battle against random people or friends over the internet), the game's replay value soars. Don't feel like going 1 on 1 with your friends? Battle as a team agaisnt the computer, or maybe even in a Free For All to see who comes out victorious. The only disappointing part about the Nintendo Wifi is that you can only play against 1 other person (I could find no way to make a 3 or 4 player friend game). I really wanted the ability to play with 2 friends at once in a Free For All. Also, considering the length of time that a turn can take, it is not exactly the most friendly wifi game. The added voice chat with friends is a almost perfect solution to Nintendo's problem: Honestly, I don't care about voice chat with random people. But I do need voice chat when playing with friends and decided what levels to play next or what type of strategies I am working on (Brawl and Mario Kart, I am looking at you). It is ironic that the system that has amazing voice chat capabilities (the 360) hardly ever gets used for multiplayer, and the systems that have the best multiplayer games (Wii) has no voice chat ability. But that is a rant for another day.

To top it all off, there is even a map editor. That's right, not only do you have what the developers created at your disposal, you can create your own maps from just about anything you have seen in the campaign. The replay value of the game is nearly infinite. I've created a ton of my own maps, some to use in 1v1 versus friends and others to make the computers a bit stronger in our co-op 2v2 matches vs the AI, which makes the games that much more fun. You get almost as much joy from huddling around the DS trying to create a level to play on as you do then testing it out and finding new ways to tweak or improve it. It is annoying that the online map sharing has to be limited to a paltry 10x10 map is beyond me, as most of my favorite created maps are 20x20 or more. And while the ability to vote on maps that you have downloaded is great, it is somewhat annoying that you cannot "search" for maps and instead are just handed a random one to try out. Or how to get more than one the "get online, download map, wait, get kicked off" process must be repeated over and over. Why can't I browse maps, or download mutliple files at once? Again, limitations to a system that could have had so much more potential but, as it stands now, the online map sharing and ranking is least a welcome (but frustrating) addition.

Overall, Days of Ruin is a great S-RPG experience and will provide hundreds of hours of gameplay. It represents one of the best values of your dollar in terms of amounts of gameplay you can squeeze out of it and is arguably one of the best games on the DS (although most certianly not the most unique experience). All in all, the game comes highly recommended and is worth every penny to purchase - you'd hardly even begin to scratch the surface if you rented it. Do yourself and your DS a favor and pick it up, if you are even remotely interested in S-RPGs, you can't go wrong with Days of Ruin.

What should be next (Still working on GTA IV and Mario Kart, sorry)?
Puzzle Quest (DS + XBLA)
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (DS)
Mass Effect (360)
Saint's Row (360)
Smash Brothers Brawl (Wii)
Undertow, (XBLA)

Uno I just won't review because, let's face it, it's Uno. Although the experience playing it on 360 is poor - the online experience is terrible and it's not like you can play multi player locally. I hope you REALLY like Uno...

Halo 3, well, I don't get the hype. Same basic thing as the first two, Forge is OK but too limiting and hard to share stuff, online is outclassed by COD4 but if you liked Halo you probably already got it anyway, no need for me to talk about it, so scratch that too.

Of court cases and magical appendages

2008-04-16T21:30:00.000-05:00

To those interested, I'm done with my first Conan episode and now I'm waiting for someone to complete the ending song and then re-encode the subtitles. I'll let you know whenever it is available, should you be interested in seeing the final results (I'll try and post the original subtitles as well for comparison, although you could just as easily find them on most torrent sites). Now, to the heart of the matter:

Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations (Nintendo DS)

I love the Phoenix Wright series. There's no denying that. To me, it's like I'm getting to experience that "Detective Conan" feeling of investigation, confrontation and resolution at my own pace. So, it may be somewhat unfair for me to be telling you how I feel about the game, because I have a love affair with the genre. That said, if you're interested in such things, the game is very good. It's not as "fresh" or unique as it was when the original came out on the DS (or GBA in Japan), and while many of the jokes are carry over jokes from the previous two games (or "inside jokes" from those two games), as a whole the game still flows very well. Just because it does not match up to the same feelings I had when I played the first one - eyes glazing over after several hours of play, trying to fight sleep as I wanted to hear just one more "OBJECTION!" - does not mean that it is a bad game. To their credit, Trials and Tribulations is a faithful extension of proven gameplay... for better (almost always) or worse (sometimes).

The game does a good job of handling the possibility that this is the first Phoenix Wright game you pick up: The first case is largely a tutorial, a simple, short case designed mostly to explain how the game works. This is great, but I would NOT suggest playing this game first. Without giving away too much, the stories of Trials and Tribulations are very tightly wound to the plot of the first two games. You'll be spoiled left and right to all kinds of plot points and most of the character interactions will seem very bizzare without explanation (a large number of "inside jokes" revolves around the characters involved). While you will still enjoy Trials and Tribulations if it's the first one you've played, you should certainly do yourself a favor and play the first two games (again, preferably in order) to get the most out of the game.

In terms of gameplay, there is hardly much difference between the three, so veterans should notice nothing new here. I will say that, in Trials and Tribulations, I found myself stuck less often, mostly due to better "puzzle" design. What I mean by this is that the actions you need to take are more obvious, but they will usually still be challenging or require at least some thought before you are able to solve them. The game is not easier, per se, it just seems like the cases follow a much more logical progression than some of the other games did. Trials and Tribulations seems to involve some of the largest cases yet, despite the fact that I recall none of the cases reaching the third day (In the original game, it was noted that all cases MUST have reached a verdict by the third day, I presume to help add a sense of urgency or pressure to the plot device. Even so, most of the cases in Trials and Tribulations are over by day 2... they are just 2 very long days!) These cases are accompanied by more investigations and more character interactions during the pre-trial phase of the game... and the only gripe I have with this is that the way you are required to move around starts to become tiresome, especially as you are backtracking to try and find that piece of evidence you've missed or to talk to a character again to move the plot forward. It's not something that destroys the gameplay or the immersion, but it does become frustrating towards the end when you have unlocked several new places to investigate. Usually this method of travel is a necessity, as you can place important, scripted plot elements to begin because you know the player will be forced to backtrack to a certain location, but the pre-trial areas could've used a bit more organization to help with this (small) complaint. The only other complaint is that this is still a port of the GBA games, and is not specifically designed for the DS (like the last case of the first game, or of the new game "Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney"

However, this is nothing more than mere quibbling. The story is top notch, the humor is spot on and the third game really helps to flesh out the relationships between all of the characters. This game is a great way to wrap up the Phoenix Wright trio of games and helped to ease the pain of waiting for the truly DS-inspired version, Apollo Justice (speaking of which, I hope to be starting this soon, too). Not to mention there is also talk of a Prosecutor-inspired "spin off" involving everyone's favorite prosecuting prodigy, Miles Edgeworth, and Phoenix Wright fans really have something to celebrate.

Overall, I have no "OBJECTION!" to this game and, in fact, highly recommend it if you have played the first two. If you haven't, then just "HOLD IT!" while you play the first two games and catch up to the Wright phenomenon. As long as you are willing to "TAKE THAT!" game lightly and allow yourself to get into the humor and characters, you will find yourself enjoying yet another amazing game on your Nintendo DS. (I'm sorry, I just couldn't help myself...)

Enchanted Arms (Xbox 360... apparently PS3 as well, but I played on the 360)

I've said this before, and suppose I should say again, that I'm a large fan of RPG-style games. MMO-, S-, J-, and even Action-RPG's are all genre's that I will generally favor over others when deciding what to play. There's just something intoxicating about leveling up and being a part of a well crafted narrative that really seems to pull me in. Of the above, J-RPGs are usually my RPG of choice, followed closely by S-RPG's (that's "Strategy RPG" to those who don't know, such as Final Fantasy Tactics and the like). Of course, anyone who looks at what I've been playing recently can tell this (Fire Emblem, Advanced Wars, Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon, Enchanted Arms, FFXII, etc), so let's not beat a dead horse here. When I first heard about Enchanted Arms, it was mainly negative news: "linear gameplay", "random battles", "lots of story"... until, of course, you realize that these people were not disappointed with Enchanted Arms as much as they were disappointed with an entire genre of games. After reading that it combines my two favorite RPG's - the story, leveling and progresion of a JRPG with an S-RPG like "battle grid" battle system, well, I knew I just had to see this for myself.

First, the game has faults. LOTS of them. Most of them DO NOT stem from the fact that it is an RPG, so much as one that is not handled well. The game does involve random battles, something Blue Dragon had done away with and has since spoiled me upon, so initially random battles seem barbaric or, at the very least, archaic. I understand the downsides of having a random battle system and even agree on several grounds. If you want to just progress through the story - or a certian area - I feel you should be allowed without being brutally and mercilessly punished for wanting to do so. Random battle systems usually tend to stifle - not encourage - exploration, mostly because you don't want to have to sit through YET ANOTHER battle when you've been through so many already just to see what is inside yonder chest, or (even more so) to read about some of the game's backstory or other non-trivial event. I don't understand how this makes sense to designers who have spent countless hours meticulously crafting and creating a completely new world for you to explore, considering they must realize that you won't go and search every nook and cranny if you're going to have to fight that giant sewer rat for the 20th time. Aside from these glaringly obvious problems, in order to even accept the fate of random battles, you need to really like the battle system; then, battles become more of a rare treat than they do a constant interruption. Fortunately for Enchanted Arms, that is it's one saving grace, but I will save that for whenever we get around to the games successes... if we even can, the list of faults is not exactly small.

The story - usually considered to be one of the 3 pillars required to even attempt to build a good RPG - is at worst laughably cliche and, at best, hopelessly uninspired. Young, cocky boy has mystical powers and comes to find the truth about himself and his powers through a relentless assult of increasingly difficult fights, only to end up saving the world as the now un-flawed hero. Add onto this fact that the story is told by way of two characters being shown side by side on screen at the same time (similar to, say, Fire Emblem... but using their actual 3d character models and not 2d art) and some incredibly annoying voice acting (who on earth thought that including a "metro" character, complete with annoying, high pitched, whiny voice, would be a smart move?) and you're on your way to simply mashing the 'a' button and trying to make it through the story as fast as possible. In an RPG, desperately trying to skip through the story is the gaming equivalent of the "kiss of death". This ain't no FPS. You aren't here to blow things up or get back to killing guys. You're here for a compelling narrative. Without that, what are you here for? The two remaining pillars, generally, are the leveling mechanisms (equipment, stats, materia, etc) and the battle system. Could two pillars be enough to hold up an RPG? We'll see.

The leveling mechanism in Enchanted Arms is relatively straightforward (kill guys --> gain exp --> become stronger) but with an interesting twist. Your character levels on it's own by means of EXP, but you also have 'SP' which you gain from battles to increase your stats even more or to learn new skills. The twist with SP is that you gain more the more strategically you play. You gain more SP when you do damage over the enemies maximum health, or even more SP when you do damage over 2x the enemies maximum health. Obviously, this could be brute-forced simply by over leveling your characters to the point of one-hit-killing everything... but what's the point, when this only helps you gain in power (which you had to do to brute-force it anyway)? Instead, it is one of the few RPG systems I've used that actually REWARDS you for thinking out how you battle and not just randomly hitting "attack" until the enemy dies so you can move on to the next one. The easiest way to get double SP is to get your characters to "combo" onto an enemy, which means you must first attack together to increase their combo gauge and then release attacks on the same enemy at the same time. The whole process is simple in theory but becomes somewhat more challenging in practice, where unit placement, EP limitations, current combo gauge status and current character status can all come into play. Is one character low on health and might die if you do the combo? These are decisions that must be made. It turns RPG's battling system on it's head: suddenly, you need to be actively involved in every battle in order to get the most out of the system. For those purely in it for the story (I'm SO sorry...) you can tell the game to just automate the battle for you and away you go. Granted, you're missing out on the only thing that makes Enchanted Arms worth playing, so why do that to yourself?

The Battle System itself is not without it's flaws, but it is an impressive blending of RPG and tactical, grid-based battles. Placement matters. Areas of affect matter. You can't just cure everyone unless you are properly placed for it. You can select "Blizzaga --> all" and attack all enemies all the time. Different attacks have different strengths and weaknesses. Your most powerful attacks cost the most amount of EP (think of it as "Energy Points", although I'm not sure if that is the official name or not) so you can't just continuously spam them throughout the battle. Using smaller, lighter attacks to build up combos and then finishing enemies off with your bigger attacks help to maximize SP gains and therefore minimize the amount of "grinding" you'll need to do (more on that later). Overall, the battle system is both impressive and engrossing, as it is perhaps one of the only times in an RPG where you will actually need to apply a strategy to battles other than boss fights. The only questionable addition is the "golems" which you can use in lieu of your actual human party members. Why you would want to use these (except in times where you don't have all 4 members) is beyond me, as they are generally less flexible than any of the human characters. They cannot learn new skills and will almost always require some amount of leveling up after you have received them to get them on-par with their human counterparts. While it would have been cool to have the golems act as an in-battle "swappable" 5th character that allows you to customize your team depending upon your current situation, since the golems do not gain SP unless they are being used the farther you get the less likely you are to use them. The idea really shows some promise - especially considering how many different golems there are in the game already - but, overall, was not really helpful or useful in any real way. Think of it as the "status effect" magic of Enchanted Arms; it's there, but nobody bothers to use it.

By halfway in, I wasn't playing for the story so much as I was playing for the challenge of facing the next enemy or the next boss. Here, perhaps, is the last great gripe about Enchanted Arms: the difficulty is very stupidly paced. There are several "choke" points in the game (for me, anyway) that seem to be designed specifically to make you grind more. I haven't felt like I had to grind levels this bad since I tried to play Final Fantasy III and IV. Granted, there is a difference between a natural level progression - like in World of Warcraft, where you feel you are advancing in some way and constantly moving forward - and pointless level progression, or "grinding", where you are merely being punished by the game for not being powerful enough to face a boss and must run around in some nearby forest to try and kill 100 of the same set of enemies and try again. I understand that these kinds of things can happen in games that don't invoke random battling, since you can chose to skip everything and eventually have to pay for not leveling your characters, but in a game where you are being constantly (and rudely) interrupted in your drive to play the game in order to partake in a battle? The ONE saving grace should be that you don't have to go back and do it again... and again... and again. Perhaps I didn't do enough side quests (except for the last "choke" boss, I doubt it). Perhaps I wasn't approaching the strategy of the battle the right way (unlikely). Whatever the case, the bosses should NOT have been that hard. Even though I did like the battle system, I almost gave up on completing the game because of the time I thought would be required to grind out levels to finish those bosses (in the end, I relied on some skill and a lot of luck to get through the "choke" points).

Somehow, despite all of it's flaws, Enchanted Arms became a game that I just could not put down. If any normal RPG that has no real story, it becomes pointless to play: you are just mashing "a" to get past story and mashing "a" to get past fights, so where's the fun? Enchanted Arms goes from "Hopeless" to "Entertaining, yet flawed" simply by including a fresh, tactically driven battle and leveling system that can really drag you in and keep you playing. It's not enough to make it "incredible", but I do hope that they can make a sequel or reuse this battle system in a new IP that includes better characters and a REAL story. Then, they could actually start contending with the "big guns" like Final Fantasy and Lost Odyssey and help to propel JRPG's to newer and better things. Until then, well... I can recommend Enchanted Arms if you, like me, love Japanese Strategy Role Play Games... just don't expect iconic characters or an interesting narrative. I wouldn't exactly chalk it up there as a "must play" but for a low priced used game you'll get a surprising amount of entertainment from it in between all the big AAA title releases we'll be seeing this year.

For the curious, here's what I'm currently hacking away at in my spare time:

Puzzle Quest (DS + XBLA)
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (DS)
Mass Effect (360)

Here there be Azure Dragons

2008-04-06T21:42:00.000-05:00

With my first re-subbing of Conan finished (I'll let you know where to get it, if you're interested in seeing it), it is now time to finish my promised blog post: namely, my impressions of Blue Dragon.

Firstly - and most importantly, perhaps - I finished Blue Dragon a long time ago. Probably been over a month since I played it. I can still say, without a doubt, it is one of the better RPGs that I have played in my lifetime.

To compare it to Chrono Trigger would be a great disservice to ChronoTrigger, as that game is one that will stand the test of time as one of the great RPG classics. However, to completely ignore their similarities would be unfair to Blue Dragon. Of course, one would expect Blue Dragon to be similar to Chrono Trigger since it is essentially the same creative minds working on those two games (composer, character designer and game designer were all the same... and all very famous in the RPG genre, although I suppose I can spare you the details if you didn't already know that). So, if you think of Blue Dragon as an 'HD' version of Chrono Trigger... well, you wouldn't be far off. Just do not mistake yourself into thinking it will be a timeless classic. I loved it, and will certainly play it again in my lifetime, but it still won't compare to the likes of FFVII or Chrono Trigger. However, there is nothing wrong with be a "really good RPG", now is there?

Perhaps the two most important elements to an RPG are it's story and characters. With a few exceptions, Blue Dragon excels at neither (I do like the enemies and a few of the major plot twists) but that does not mean that it fails at them, either. The characters fit the style; that is to say, they are your basic anime characters transposed into a video game. They are young (at first glance, exceptionally so, although you come to learn they are much older than they look... somehow), stubborn, and very expressive. What is unique, I feel, from many RPGs of late is that the main character is not "emo". He isn't pouting or complaining or thinking the world is unfair or out to get him. In fact, Shu (the main character) is unervingly upbeat. When he's down he doesn't sulk or cower, he just yells "I won't give up", gets up, and tries again. Compare this to, say, Squall or Tidus, who were more prone to whining and sulking, and it makes for a much cheerier mood. Of course, given the light, cartoony look everything has to it, it is rather difficult to see something as sad or depressing. Expressions and Voice Acting help to overcome this, adding to the depth of emotion available, but compared to a more "realistic" and bland style, Blue Dragon is a much more light hearted experience.

The characters themselves are not as iconic or loveable (no Robo, no Frog, etc) as ChronoTrigger, but the vivid expressions and acceptable voice acting (save marumaro, who sounds more like someone dragging their nails across a chalkboard than anything else) help to give the otherwise bland characters a bit more life. The use of the "Dragons", which more or less act as your actual fighting force (your characters themselves do not attack save for a few special instances, and instead the dragons to everything you command) helps to set the characters apart even more. I wish they had made the 'minotaur' dragon look less emaciated and more powerful, but that doesn't fit Jiro's character. By the end, when you obtain the characters "limit-break" like power, and the dragons go from being ethereal shadows to actual mortal beings, the graphical detail and the power of HD really shine through to give you one of those "wow" type moments that I haven't really felt since first watching a summon in FFVII. I have no idea why you cannot access this power until very, VERY late in the game... but, hey, that's how it is.

Perhaps the worst part about Blue Dragon is that the story starts out very, VERY slow. Between the bland characters, the constant loading and the erratic pace, it is really hard to get into it. The game tries to be epic from the start - you begin the game sitting under a windmill with a calm sky and lullabye-like music, and then 15 seconds later (almost all of which is loading) you are being attacked by a land shark (very FFX "Sin"-esque). By the time you've met all the characters, gotten dragged away from your home and tried to go through all the tutorial type stuff... you start to wonder where this is going or why you care. Nothing seems to really click in the beginning. Even I, as desperate as I was to play a JRPG, was wondering why I had thought I wanted to play one of these kind of games again. Give it a few hours, though, and the game finally starts to take on a life of it's own. I can't tell you where, as it will more than likely differ on when you are finally piqued by the characters or the story, but once you are hooked the mix of character interaction, plot and just standard RPG-faire "level up" gameplay will keep you wanting to come back for more. I can't claim that the story is very original (although, to it's credit, a good bit of it is) and it is by no means complex or thought provoking, but as a mechanism for driving you to want to get farther and see more of it... well, once it gets going, it takes off and keeps going even until the very end.

Gameplay is rather standard by RPG means - nothing fancy like the gambit system or strange like the junction system - but the way you can customize your dragon's class and the fact that you can "power up" your moves so they take longer but pack a bigger punch means that there is a large amount of strategy involved in how you plan your attacks. In most turn based RPGs, battling is rather one sided. You either attack almost all the time, because magic is too costly to use on anything but a boss, or you use magic and summons constantly because it is in great abundance and just attacking would take forever (less damage, single target). Very few RPGs can mix these two perfectly to create a true "strategy" to battling - that is to say, not just repeatedly choosing the same option - but the jobs and skills available to you in Blue Dragon combined with the "power up" make it to where you won't often find yourself "just pressing a" over and over.

Speaking of battling, the level pacing is actually rather lenient, given the genre. I never ran into a boss that was so difficult that I just had to 'grind' and level my characters for hours, which is pretty impressive given that - like Chrono Trigger - you can choose to evade enemies if you so choose. Usually, that means that you end up being under leveled since you skip as many enemies as possible because battling becomes repetitive. The fact that battling involves actual strategy and is more involved - makes it to where I didn't find myself skipping battles too often, so I was always prepared. The only time I had to "grind" was for those extra hard bosses that you can beat after the last boss, and since those are really side quests meant for those who an infatuated with the game and want to do everything and overcome every challenge (read: me) I don't find it very fair to fault the game for that. You'll find that you spend more time enjoying the game than you do mindlessly leveling... always a plus in a game this long. You will get your money's worth out of this game. It was a good 40 hours for the whole game, not including a few miscellaneous side quests and except for those first few slow hours, it is very enjoyable.

Music for the game is, in my opinion, some of Nobuo Uematsu's best work to date. While it may not become as nostalgic as Final Fantasy VII's soundtrack, and nothing can even begin to touch the majesty and power of "One Winged Angel", especially orchestrated or in it's Advent Children form, but the Blue Dragon soundtrack still gets quite alot of playtime on my ipod. From the gentle piano of "Waterside" to the all-out rockin' boss battle music "Eternity", Uematsu really goes all out in his compositions and each song finds it's own way to move you. The music goes very well with each character (the Devee dance music is both catchy and hilarious) and really helps to set the mood throughout the game. Audibly, you couldn't ask for better.

Really, what else is there to say? Gameplay is "old school" but involved, music is superb, the graphics are crisp and refreshingly not brown, the story (eventually) grips you and there is alot of replay potential (did I mention a New Game + option?). Sure, it's nothing new or innovative. Yes, there's some graphical slowdown and tearing. Yes, there's tons of loading. Yes, the game is story is slow. Like any game (even the coveted FFVII), there are faults. But the overall experience far outweighs any of the negatives.

In case you are wondering, no, this game is not quite good enough to be tossed around with games like FFVI, FFVII, or Chrono Trigger. Someone who does not play JRPGs will find almost nothing of interest here, and it's not something they will have heard or perhaps even be interested in playing (as opposed to something like FFVII or Mass Effect, which are either "Timeless classics" or "Action Games with RPG elements"), but for anyone who enjoys a good JRPG I can not stress enough how much you should play this game. You will not regret it, and if you do, I can't imagine how you enjoy other JRPGs... unless you just really, really hate an anime style. So do yourself a favor - go play it. Buy it, even. You won't regret it.

-- Edit --

I forgot to add... what would you like me to review next? Take just about any game I've mentioned in previous posts (Enchanted Arms, Phoenix Wright, etc), or you may also choose Saint's Row (just finished yesterday), Smash Brothers Brawl, my early impressions of Fire Emblem Wii, or my final impressions of Advanced Wars. I haven't decided if I'll start Lost Odyssey or Mass Effect next, but those are possible candidates, too).

It's coming, I promise...

2008-03-28T17:15:00.000-05:00

I've been meaning to post about Blue Dragon for some time, but haven't gotten the chance to do so. Been WAY too busy, plus enjoying my free time playing Smash Brothers Brawl and Fire Emblem. I'm thinking about reducing these posts to maybe 1 game each time, to help me get them out faster...

Unfortunately, I may have also hurt my release schedule by picking up another "hobby" - sprucing up the terribly "XCHKS" subs for Detective Conan. It has been alot of fun (it helps that I'm a huge fan of the show) but my penchant for perfectionism makes the entire process very time consuming. I spent an hour last night "fixing" a mere 3 minutes of the show, although I must say that it makes it that much more enjoyable to watch. Hopefully, once I get used to the subbing program, things will go by much faster.

ctl-c, ctl-v

2008-02-26T19:03:00.000-06:00

Apparantly, copy-paste is too difficult for me, because I've had this ready for nearly 2 weeks and sitll haven't posted it. So, without further ado, here it is:

I feel as though I've neglected the "ranting" portion in lieu of the deluge of games that I have played recently. That being said, here are a few things that have been on my mind as of late. Granted, they will not be as detailed as the game reviews (I tend to prefer that more to writing down thoughts that end up making me angry or require a very significant amount of research in order to be more fair), but it's at least something to think on.

Firstly, the whole Fox / Mass Effect deal. I have not gotten around to playing the game yet (and if Blue Dragon continues on like it is, I won't get around to it for a while yet), so my comments on this will be breif. This is basically yet another way that video games get singled out over other media (music, movies, books, et al) on "questionable content". Ever since the "hot coffee mod" hit the scene, it is as though games must be squeaky clean, positive reinforcement learn-fests before they are approved by the media. The woman who went off on Mass Effect (basically saying it contains full frontal nudity when it does not) eventually retracted, admitting that once she actually saw the game she obviously saw herself being in the wrong. She went on to state there is more sexually explicit content in your average 1 hour showing of Lost or Desperate Housewives than there was in this 40+ hour epic adventure. The fact that even the loony Jack Thompson didn't see enough in this game to fight against it shows that either hell itself has frozen over, or it was really no big deal (I personally believe the answer is "both").

Next, we have the presidential race. I've yet to dive TOO deep into the race, as I've already grown incredibly tired of this campaign. It started so early, and people have been speculating and guessing and prophesying for so long that I grew both bored and apathetic. I know who I want to be MY candidate, I can do my own research. I don't have to watch disingenuous attempts at "involving the american public" through the You-tube debates, or at all this baby kissing and hand shaking. I don't care about Hillary's every movement nor Guiliani's insane comments. Perhaps I've become incredibly jaded in just the past 4 years, but now it seems to be "same old, same old". Haven't we been here before? "Washington Insider vs. the "breathe of fresh air" outsider. Candidates trying to fight it out as to who is capable of NOT being the same failure as the incumbent. This all sounds... familiar. I certianly didn't need all that extra lead in time they were throwing at me, starting so incredibly early to try to build up the hype machine and raise even more money (I thought we were supposed to be stopping all that? Whatever happened to campaign finance reform and working away from money buying the seats?) These fools do next to nothing while in office - not on immigration, not on security, not on protecting our freedoms or net neutrality or tax reform, big government and over-budgets, a busting sub-prime market.... the list goes on and on - and yet they want me to pay attention to them now? Where do people find the energy to back this kind of rhetoric? Some of these people have been in political power for years, even decades, and they have what to show for it? Once I get passed my primary, and we start narrowing down candidates for me to focus on... then I can get more into it. But right now it's really just tiring to keep up with news about how these people try to undermine each other and slit each others throats day in and day out. I speak in generalities, of course - not EVERYONE is like that in all aspects - but most talk shows or internet sites, or even news stories certianly make you feel as though this is always the case. Anything to grab some eyeballs and captivate audiences, eh?

So much for not being "too deep into the race"! I didn't know I had it in me, really. Serious topics aside, here are a few tidbits about the group of 360 games I've played recently but haven't had the chance to comment on yet.

Gears of War

I've actually played the game before, but I've never really owned it (and just recently started "reviewing" things again) so now seems as good a time as any to mention it. For the most part, I absolutely refuse to touch the game as a "single player" experience. That is not a statement against the single player campaign, either; the story, characters, gameplay and pacing are all very good. But, having now played through the game twice on co-op, playing the campaign with just one person feels very "boring" or bland, despite the fact that Gears of War is, indeed, a very high quality game. Graphically the game does impress - even more so in HD - although I can't really say that the game inspires a sense of awe or amazement (perhaps this is coming from a present perspective on the game, as compared to when it came out over a year ago). The graphics are indeed great and you'll be hard pressed to find even newer games that look significantly better (though there are a few), but to me the "wow" factor almost always stems more from style than it does from technical prowess. I can say "wow" to pictures of Crysis, yet generally feel no recolletion of the games pictures aside from a few trees and rocks. Maybe some sand. (Also, I've never played the game...) Gears gives me much the same feeling. Characters aside, the graphics impress but are generally "forgettable". You go from some boring, drab, run down building to another boring, drab, run down building... and the process kind of repeats itself. Oh, and in case the buildings weren't bland enough for you, you also go underground only to be surrounded by even more boring scenery like rocks! The rain during that factory level is rather cool, and as I've said before the Characters are well done, other than that it's just more boring, "realistic" looking graphics that focus too much on earthy, dark tones than it does Style. No More Heroes leaves me more impressed overall Graphically than this game does, if only because it oozes a very unique sense of design. However, graphics really mean next to nothing to me in terms of games. It's nice to move forward in terms of more detail or more action on-screen, but without the right style you really can't do much to stand out.

So, obviously, the most important part of Gears is gameplay. The "cover" system seems to give Gears a significant boost over just about every other series in the genre, adding in a nice layer of strategy/pacing where most games tend to be more about "run and gun" or being fast with the trigger. Active reloading really highlights the extra level of strategy and attention required to do well in the game. You can't just constantly spam reload and expect to blast your way through enemies. A well timed active reload, though, can shave seconds off your reload times and really help you out in a pinch.

As with any kind of game like this, the co-op really makes it shine. I admit that playing the game just by yourself can be fun, but playing with a friend makes the game all that much better. The most confusing part of the game is how the story is centered around 4 characters, yet the game remains only 2 player co-opable. Perhaps Halo 3's 4 player co-op has me spoiled, but Gears of War practically screams for it to be enabled for 4 players. Hopefully Gears of War 2 will up the ante and allow 4 friends to take down the Locust together.

Pacing is kind of a mixed bag, something that is also important to me in shooter/adventure type games like this. I do not like finally overcoming a hard or difficult part only to die and have to repeat the process over and over again. A few times is acceptable - blowing through the game would not be fun, either - but being stuck at the same area for nearly an hour really starts to frustrate. I will admit I'm not the best player out there, but playing on co-op and on the middle difficulty setting should not see 2 people stuck for nearly an hour. The hardest parts in the game are, arguably, where you "split up". This makes it doubly difficult because, firstly, you do not have anyone to back you up or cover you and, more importantly, you cannot be ressurected if you die which means that you BOTH have to start over from the last checkpoint. Co-op can allow two people with unequal skill to play on the same level, and these "splits" can really slow you down when one player has a difficult time getting through their portion of the level. It makes the game less "fun", makes the good player feel bored and the bad player feel worthless. I can appreciate that the designers probably wanted to challenge players in these portions but couldn't they have been a little more forgiving, especially with regards to checkpoints? At least not having to replay the entire split would have made things a little more bearable while keeping the difficulty up.

Sp, I guess this game has a multiplayer component? I don't really know. I really enjoy the cover system and the game mechanics from a single player perspective... but it seems like it would be incredibly boring in multiplayer. I've played local multiplayer with friends, and that wasn't nearly as much fun as teaming up in campaign or as other multiplayer games (Smash Bros, Halo 3, etc). I guess if you really like the system but want the challenge of facing a human opponent you might play this over live, but I don't really see it as being something I would enjoy doing (even just to get the acheievements).

Overall, the game is definitely worth playing. If you're like me and just want to experience the campaign, grab a friend and rent the game over the weekend - it is easily beatable in 1 sitting, or you could break it up over a few if you are playing on the higher difficulties. COG tags, acheivements and multiplayer could keep you coming back for more, if you like collecting things or flexing your muscle over live. Even I have played the game through multiple times. My last playthrough was the third time I've beaten the game and it is just as fun as it was the first time. The game is still $50 for a reason... because it is a stellar 360 exclusive. Even if you are like me and don't particularly care for the genre, it is worth it just for the co-op experience.

Crackdown

Crackdown can be gracefully summed up in two words: Agility Orbs. While on the surface crackdown

seems like a "GTA-clone" - a title which has now completely replaced the original term, "Sandbox

Game" - after playing it for about an hour you will see that this can hardly be farther from the

truth. Crackdown involves a large open city that requires no loading (in fact, didn't GTA have loading? and lets you go anywhere you want and do anything you want. Honestly, that is where the comparisons stop, which means that they are just the same genre of game. Beyond that, they couldn't be more different.

GTA is a rather slow paced game. You work your way through the game's "narritive", perhaps indulging yourself in one of the world's many glorified mini-games to increase your "stats", make some money or gain access to new items or areas. Outside of the missions you generally have very littl reason - or desire - to pick fights with people as it will either get you killed or in trouble with the law. Ironically the main draw of GTA is not the sandbox elements (although that makes the game more fun by giving you the opportunity to take the game at your own pace and freedom to do whatever you'd like to do) but in the expertly crafted and cleverly driven narrative contained within. There are many true "GTA-clones" that do not sell nearly as well as Grand Theft Auto for this exact reason. Saint's Row, for all that it added to the "sandbox" mechanism, just doesn't cut it when compared to the story of Grand Theft Auto. Why else would Rockstar be able to sell both Vice City and San Andreas, not to mention the entire collection of "stories" games, when 85%+ of the sandboxing elements in these games are the same as they have always been. Ooooh, they added motorcycles, big whoop! You can finally swim? Game of the Year CONFIRMED!

Look, Grand Theft Auto and many any other sucessful series - Zelda, Final Fantasy, Halo, Call of Duty, etc - are games that largely maintain the core elements of their genre while pushing the genre forward with smaller, more controlled innovations, high production quality and excellent Narratives. Let's face it, Link has been doing the exact same thing since the original Legend of Zelda - navagating a large and compelling overworld and navagating perilous dungeons to expand his arsenal and finally fight Gannon/Vatii/Windfish... whoever. It's the same game! But the games sell well not due to individual parts, but taken as a whole; a sum of its parts.

So where does Crackdown fit in all of this? Well, as someone who is guilty of calling Crackdown "that game no one wanted that came with Halo 3 Beta" and "how original, yet another GTA clone" I feel compelled to prevent you from making the same mistake that I made. Crackdown takes the sandbox idea and gives it a shot in the arm. Your character starts out far from "normal" and just becomes more and more superhero-esque as you proceed through the game. From the start you can already jump several stories high, allowing you to climb buildings, scale mountains or clear obstacles with a single bound. Grand Theft Auto generally starts you off slow... access to only the first town, only a couple of missions available, not much you can work on until you get the story going. Crackdown throws this out the window. You turn the game on and, if you want, you can go straight for the last boss. Considering that you make him weaker by defeating all of his underlings I'm sure it would make things alot more difficult, but you really can do ANYTHING you want. You are limited solely by your current "skill levels" (you probably can't scale some buildings without getting your agility up first) but, for the most part, the world is your oyster.

What's even better is, the game throws action at you almost non-stop; the streets are crawling with gang members (who, by the way, don't seem to like law enforcement) and if you really thin their ranks in a short amount of time, they send "hit squads" to really make your life interesting. You aren't waiting around for someone to cause trouble, or driving through large cities trying to get to your next mission (perhaps the greatest downfall of Grand Theft Auto being so massive in scope). In fact, it's usually so much fun to jump from rooftop to rooftop, sniping enemies or sending heat-seeking rockets into a group of unsuspecting Volk that you will probably forgo driving entirely (that, and civilians have this bad habit of always jumping out in front of you, which gets you in trouble with the law...).

Agility Orbs really add to the sense of exploration and reward you for climbing huge structures and making big leaps of faith. But since there are more than 500 of them scattered throughout the city, the act more like pez candy than they do anything else. You get one, and from that vantage point you can see at least 3 others. Next thing you know, you've collected 40 and you are the complete other side of the map... and going strong. I can't quite put my finger on it but something about jumping from rooftop to rooftop, jumping 35 feet vertically and hundreds of feet horizontally just feels fun no matter how you slice it. Add in the addictive "collecting" quest behind agility orbs (encourages scaling buildings and big jumps) and hidden orbs (encourages exploration and clever thinking with some difficult jumps) and you can entertain yourself for hours on end just trying to collect them. On paper it sounds ludicrous, I know, but once you start playing they are like Lay's... you can't eat just one! (Can I even say that? Is it copyright protected or something? In fact, do they even use that slogan anymore?)

The game is not without flaws, though. In order to acheive this faster paced, more "action/arcade" style of gameplay it has to sacrifice any semblance of a strong narrative ("Bad guy X is in charge of bad thing Y, go kill him!" is hardly a storyline) and compared to the main gameplay, the "side quests" feel lacking or annoying. Driving a car is about as easy as trying to firmly grasp a wet bar of soap - you can do marginally well at slower speeds, but you might as well walk at that point. Boss's, especially the later ones, are more an excercise in patience than anything else. They are ALWAYS the same, the only thing different between them is the number of small-time lackeys that you will have to take out before you get to them (hence my most of the last bosses are in buildings and other closed enviornments, where you are forced through narrow passages and rooms and therefore cannot help but face all the weaker enemies). The strength of the core gameplay, however, helps to augment the tedious nature of the "main story"... especially since round-house kicks to the gut and rockets to the face NEVER seems to get old.

Co-op is a plus for this game, but no split screen co-op is a crime. There's no way it isn't feasable to do 2 player co-op on the same screen; it just screams of a way to make more people purchase copies of the game or invest money into Xbox LIVE. I appreciate that co-op is there - and that it was available over LIVE - but making that the only option is just mean.

You can easily extend your enjoyment of the game, especially if you are a completionist type. Stat points, agility orbs and Hidden orbs will keep even the most meticulous of collectors busy for dozens of hours over normal game play, if not drive them a little insane (why, oh WHY can't they show us where that last orb is. If you have 499 out of 500, isn't that ENOUGH? Just show me where that last one is. Even a hint would be great. You can keep track of which ones I've already collected - how else do they not respawn? - so help me out. Show me on a map where the ones I collected were, or start showing orbs on the map after I collected 75% plus. Having to comb over that insanely huge city for ONE orb is grounds for cruel and unjust punishment). Vehicle races, time trials, and leaderboards extend play for the more competitive amoung us, giving proof of bragging rights between friends... or the world. I think... I haven't really used them yet (too busy with the real game!).

Crackdown takes the tried-and-true "go anywhere, do anything" sandbox method and ratchets up the action to keep you on your toes. Seemingly Limitless enemies, collectable items, time trials and side quests give offer up plenty of entertainment and leave you always doing something. "Supply points" provide a great long-distance travel mechanism, while attempting to not totally ruin the size and scope of the world (they also help keep your full on ammo and give you a wide selection of guns as you "borrow" them from the other gangs). Free downloadable content gives you a little more to do, and pay content even throws in some new vehicles and more side quests to do (although, admitedly, I've never downloaded or played the pay conent). This fresh new take on the sandbox genre might not last you as long on the main story as Grand Theft Auto would, and lack of a true "story" leaves you with very little purpose or direction, but the gameplay is just plain fun. There are so many used copies floating around that it is a crime - no pun intended - for you to not own this game. There is plenty to do and see (and kill!) and you will have a very hard time putting it down. In a genre where everything has to live in the shadow of Grand Theft Auto, Crackdown does very well in making a name for itself and definitely deserves your attention.

Call of Duty 4

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not exactly a "fan" of first person shooters. I can play them and enjoy them, sure, but I generally do not do so on my own dime (Half-Life being the exception. You could also count Metroid Prime but, honestly, that's adventure). Owning a 360 comes at a price, though; First person shooters do so well on the system that one can't help but run into several "quality" titles every now and then, even if it is a genre I'm not exactly fond of.

So, when I was offered the opportunity to play Call of Duty 4 multiplayer, I reluctantly accepted, mostly because they needed my 360 anyway and I wanted to keep an eye on it. Multiplayer with people I know is perhaps the one saving grace to a first person shooter, outside of a truly emmersive story (hence my caving to the Half-Life series). Ever since Goldeneye on my N64, first person shooters have redeemed themselves in my eyes with a quality multiplayer component. I remember next to nothing of Halo 1 and 2 campaign, but have tons of great memories of 16 player LANs with epic, hour long capture-the-flag matches and nail-bitingly close Slayer matches.

Unfortunately, Infinity Ward seems to have something against playing system link but also having mutliple people on the same console... so even though there were 5 of us, only 4 of us could play. I offered to sit out, but since there was an extra copy of the game... why not play single player? It would at least give me something to do while waiting for them to finish playing.

From a single player perspective, the game did not "break boundaries" in any way, really. I like how it played, and the story was interesting enough (especially how the two stories wove together by the end). Certianly not up to Half-Life standards, but it gets the job done. Some of the "non FPS" levels provided a nice break from the staple "first person, run and gun". Shooting that huge gun from the airplane, providing your character (on the ground, not the one you were playing currently operating the gun) a chance to escape was especially fun. The "stealth" level was also nice to play, although the directions sometimes seemed ambiguous and would sometimes get me dangerously close to a guard... or worse, caught.

It is not a long affair - I beat the game within a 24 hour time period, without even really trying. I played some Galaxy, met with some friends, you know... lived a rather normal life. It is not as though I really had to play the game non-stop to beat it. 6-8 hours, maybe less if you are really good. Then again, I didn't play on the hardest difficulty except for 1 level, and if you played on that I'm sure the game would take you alot longer (but be alot more frustrating, too).

Multiplayer seemed to have much more promise, mixing RPG like elements (leveling up, gaining access to new items, skills, etc) to the standard FPS gameplay (run and gun, shoot, grenades... why am I explaining this?!?) and even using a class system to allow you to customize your guns and items. While I haven't played it myself, friends I know who are big FPS buffs play Call of Duty 4 multiplayer more than Halo 3 mutliplayer, and that's saying something. Personally, though, I don't really like playing FPS's multiplayer without friends, so I've never played and therefore can't really vouch for the system. I can safely suggest it, though, as many people I know would whole heartedly support it (and they are usually very picky).

This game kind of comes across as a toss up. The main story is fun, and if you are really itching for a good FPS then it is worth, at the very least, a rental. You can most definitely blow through the main game in a weekend, even perhaps on veteran. If you've been playing Halo 2 multiplayer for the last few years, then a purchase is almost assuredly in order. The RPG elements give you something to work towards while you play (besides, you know, just being the best and winning all the time) and that can definitely add to the "addictive" nature of online gaming and rank-climbing. On the console versions you can even "reset" to level 1 once you reach the level cap, all for a special symbol being placed next to your name... and you can do it 10 times! Experience doesn't even seem to be tied directly to how well you do (you get more experience for more kills and winning, but you don't move backwards for losing or doing poorly) so even on your off days you can make some progress and those of us (me) who aren't as good could slowly work our way towards those higher ranks. It's more than likely that you already know whether or not you want this game (actually, that you already OWN this game or not, considering how many it has sold) but if you are on the fence, well... you are definitely missing out.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly...

Assassin's Creed

It is kind of difficult to put into words just what is so amazing about this game. Despite watching two other people play most of the game (including seeing several plot twists and even the ending) I still felt a need to go out and obtain a copy of the game for myself. This is the kind of game that is both fun to play and fun to watch, where literally anything can happen and you are ENCOURAGED to use environnments and stealth to your advantage, while not being forced into doing so if you don't want to. Sure, anyone can probably take on 20 guards at a time once they get the "core" mechanics of the game down and nothing really changes from the first boss to the last one, but that core gameplay is so good that you can play through at your own pace and honestly never really notice it.

There are some, however, that did complain about how "repetitive" it was and how boring it became... and it makes me wonder just what game they were playing. Is Halo 3 "boring and repetitive" because you basically spend the entire game shooting enemies? Is Super Mario Galaxy "boring and repetitive" because you spend most of the game jumping? Hardly. So what is the beef with people and Assassin's Creed? Why is it so special that it deserves this criticsm? Pehaps people were over-hyped for the game. Perhaps they were expecting something bigger, or better, or different than what Ubisoft ended up providing. But that would make me wonder... what exactly were they hoping for?

Now I admit that the game does have its share of flaws. The story, as good as it was, falls flat on its face in the end because it amounts to nothing more than a big tease. The game does a fairly good job of not forcing you to do anything you don't want. You can use rooftops or "blending" to avoid guards and confrontation in general. The main story, however, takes it to a near minimum, requiring only 2-3 "investigations" before you are allowed to assassinate your target... which means you could literally blow through the main game if you really wanted. Someone who takes time to explore the city and accept all the side quests, however, could spend hours on just one assassination mission alone.

This is really the only point of ontention I have with the game: the "investigations" are generally well mixed and offer a fair amount of variety of things to complete (albeit, some of them are fairly boring; sitting on a bench, listening to a conversation? Not exactly the pennacle of interactive entertainment...) but your choice of "optional" side quests is very limited in scope. Not counting collectable flags and templars(AGAIN with punishing 99/100 collectors? ugh!), optional quests include one of two options: saving citizens or climbing to look out points. Now, these acts in and of themselves are not terrible. Saving citizens is both fun and challenging because it makes sure to throw several guards at you at once, theoretically making it a more challenging engagement then you are used to. When done correctly, they are entertaining diversions to the stealth, run around and ignore guards style gameplay. The problem arises when there are citizens trapped in large, market like areas... and it seems as though there is a never-ending flow of guards to face. Sure, 4 or 5 are OK but once you are on guard 10 or 11 because that pack of 7 guards roaming that area found you (which they almost certianly will) it can really seem to drag out the fight, especially since you originally intended to only be fighting a few men and be on your way.

Climb points are much more fun, as they tend to have you go into interesting portions of the city to "synchronize" and give you an idea of what is in the area. Climbing anywhere and everywhere almost never gets old, a few of the larger buildings present almost puzzle-like challenges that require more thinking than just holding up on the stick and waiting, and the wide-pan view of the entire freaking city from way up in the air never fails to impress. It provides you a good escape from running around on rooftops or sneaking around in the streets, and in my opinion gives the game alot better pacing and flow then just trying to steamroll your way through the main events in the game (which would surely agitate and frustrate me). Sandbox games allow you to "go anywhere, do anything", but rarely does one encourage it so openly.

Flags and Templars add a "collectable" aspect to encourage even more exploring but with no in-game interface for keeping track of which ones you have already gotten and which ones remain, it can be frustrating to complete (even with help from a map) and usually offers only smaller diversions for players who catch them out in the open on their way to other areas or while on the run from guards.

What Ubisoft could have done to make the game feel less "repetitive" (a designation which I firmly deny to be true but entertain as a possibility nonetheless, as obviously someone feels it is true) would be to add in a greater number of "side quest" options and pull back on the number available in a given area. No one wants to feel like they should complete the same task TWELVE TIMES or more before having "finished" and area and preparing for the boss, but if you want to rescue all citizens or climb all viewpoints you just might. Instead, put a max on perhaps 2-4 (a larger cap for viewpoints, perhaps upwards of 8) and add in some other tasks to mix it up a little. Maybe pretend that the templars built "secret underground tunnels" and have Altair find and "explore" 2 of them, opening them as "waypoints" between different areas of the city. Or maybe an "Assassin's Challenge" to see how many guards Altair could stealthily kill in a set amount of time; that would even allow you to compare results with friends over xbox live. Maybe have a "training camp" similar to the tutorial area in Masayf where Altair is required to perform a certian number of moves in a give time frame. As you can see, turning those 12 "save the citizen" tasks into 3 or 4 groups of 3 or 4 tasks each would help to increase the variety of gameplay and keep the game from feeling "repetitive".

Overall the game represents a refreshing and exhilirating experience supported with meticulous attention to detail and enviornment design. The "little" things never fail to impress, from the unique camera angles available as "memory glitches" during cut scenes (that generally give a more cinematic feel to the story unfolding before you), the amount of care that must have gone into creating each city and character, and the "back story" behind the TRUE story. If you only go through the game with putting for the minimum amount of effort and never read any of the emails, pay attention to the detail given to you in each investigation, or watch the more cinematic camera angles in the cut scenes, then you really are missing out of some of the true entertainment and "magic" that this game possesses. Participating in the story as it unfolds, watching the characters interact and seeing Altair's transformation from "know-it-all" rogue to "inquisitive, learned informant" plays out very well and helps to slowly dole the truth behind the story to you in bits and pieces that give you just enough information to cause you to think, without unveiling the true secrets until the appropriate times. Some twists are more expected than others, but sometimes it is not the plot twist itself that remains interesting, but the journey that led to it. Altair's (and Desmond's) role in the whole thing become some of the most intriguing parts of the whole setup, and again, the story fails by seemingly dropping the game to an "end" sequence in a big tease of a cliff hanger more than a true "resolution" one would expect. In many ways, it plays out like an episode of LOST, but without the smoke monsters and attractive female lead character.

It is hard to recommend this game as a "rental" because in order to fully appreciate it you need to approach it with an inquisitive mind and not be straining to beat the game within a certian time limit. Truly exploring the world and story could push your play time well over 20 hours, and while collectable flags and templars can add several more hours on top of that, it still wouldn't scratch the surface of most RPG type games. I suppose if you think you can somehow squeeze that whole 20 hour play session into one rental period then by all means save the money; as fun as the game is, it does not really have any replay value outside of a full completion. Just know that you will probably miss out on alot of the game by restricting yourself to a certian time frame and trying to brute-force your way through the game. I would instead recommend a purchase; the story and gameplay are worth the monetary investment and freedom from time restraints, especially considering you can find the game as low as $30 to $40 already (depending on if you are looking to buy the 360 or PS3 version). The game is just plain fun, the story is cinematic and engrossing (even if a bit predictable), and the production values and attention to detail are top notch. Hopefully, the brisk sales will encourage Ubisoft to release "downloadable content" in order to expand on the game and keep us involved until they can release a sequel.

Well, there you have it. Four more games put on the chopping block and disected for your reading (and, perhaps, wallet's) pleasure. Considering that Super Tuesday was this week, and several other major stories have been brewing as of late (5 huge fiber optic cables in the ocean accidentally go offline in 1 week? sounds fishy to me...) expect the blog to shift back to a more half/half rant and review style then it has been as of late. For those interested in games, though, here's what I'm currently playing (and, therefore, you should expect reviews for coming shortly):

Title, System (comment)

Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations, DS (This has been completed, so definitely this one)

Blue Dragon, 360 (completed for the most part, few achievements aside, so you'll see this soon)

Halo 3, 360 (completed, but don't expect multiplayer to be talked about much on my part)

Undertow, 360 XBLA (Played through single playet campaign, at least)

Uno, 360 XBLA (Played it some... isn't that enough?)

Games I'm currently playing that you'll see in the future:

Enchanted Arms, 360 (Just started... expect within a month or so. It is a JRPG so it may take a while)

Advanced Wars: Days of Ruin, DS (Also just started... expect campaign impressions soon, but replayability will keep it being mentioned for a while)

Viva Pinata, 360 (Been playing off and on, kinda far so I have initial impressions but there's alot of game left here)

Overwhelmed

2008-01-28T17:34:00.000-06:00

Boy, am I behind! I've so many games to catch up on - no thanks in part to just having gotten my 360 - that I'm going to be busy for a while. Add to that the fact that 2008 already has some killer titles coming out as early as February (Apollo Justice) and continuing throughout the summer (GTAIV, Brawl, etc) that I'm not going to be in a "gaming drought" anytime soon. That being said, here are my personal impressions on the latest titles that I've played.

Super Mario Galaxy

We'll start off with the Wii, and you can't possibly talk about the Nintendo Wii without mentioning Super Mario Galaxy. Mario games, as of late, have not exactly been my cup 'o' Tea. Super Mario Sunshine (GameCube) did not exactly strike a chord with me; not only did I not collect all the shines, but I didn't even beat Bowser. I borrowed "New Super Mario Brothers" from a friend hoping to see if it was good enough to warrant purchase, and while I can say I enjoyed the game on some level overall I felt it lacked any real pizzazz and never did finish it or buy it. So when Super Mario Galaxy was first announced, I approached it with a certain level of trepidation. Being burned by the last two 'true' Mario games instilled no sense of loyalty in me and I couldn't even imagine how the Wii Remote could be used to "enhance" a game like Mario. I was content to love Mario 64 and, perhaps eventually, pick up Mario Galaxy. The Intention was to purchase my most desired game - Smash Brothers Brawl - and once Galaxy reached "player's choice" status or whatever they call it for Wii, finally give it a whirl. After all, even Sunshine was fun to a certian extent, and a Nintendo game generally has enough Polish to be worth a purchase at some point, regardless of being "Game of the Year" quality.

So here I am, 120 stars later, and willing to admit that I should not question what a plump, platforming plumber can do to a grown man. Galaxy grabs you and hooks you into simple, addictive gameplay so refined that it's almost impossible to convince yourself to put down the Wiimote for anything. You really get that "Just 1 more star" mentality and pretty soon it's 1am and you're wondering when the sun went down and why you haven't eaten dinner yet. In an era where First Person Shooters and RPGs seem to rule all the sales charts and be the apple of every critic's eye, this little gem goes down as the game that just might be able to top Mario 64 in my opinion as the best Mario game.

Hands down, the best feature is the crazy use of gravity. The clever gravity puzzles, the ability to jump off of a high tower and "fly" all the way around the planet to the other side, the gravity changing fields and "oh wow" factor of running upside down on the roof or straight up the wall. It's all there, everything you could possibly image (and more) and it isn't limited to a few over used "see-saw" puzzles (see: Half Life 2). Sure, the gravity is not "logical" or even physically plausible, and it is true that on more than one occasion you'll become disoriented and have no idea how to corectly move mario in the direction you want him to go. These are but small flaws in a system that genuinely takes an old, tired game genre and - no pun intended - flips it completely upside down. Has it been done before? Probably. Is it perfect? No. I found more than one time where I died because I wanted to run left but Mario instead ran right, or couldn't see around corners or in tight areas due to some 'iffy' camera controls, but overall the game delights in so many ways that you do not account much for these.

I've already completed the game (and by complete I don't mean beating the last boss, which can be done with only 60 stars, but having collected all 120 stars) and simply cannot wait to play the game over again. The only complaints I really have for the title lie with it's potential, which may be somewhat unfair. When I say it could have been better, it is not because it was bad or lacking, but because suddenly I can see even MORE they could have done. Perhaps the biggest tease (warning, SPOILER!) is the fact that near the end of the game you can gain access to a "flying" cap similar to that in Mario 64. Unfortunately, this never seems to be utilized in the actual levels and instead is completely limited to the "overworld" area. What gives, Nintendo? Some of the most enjoyable levels from Mario 64 were the stars that required using the flying cap! Shooting yourself out of a cannon and then flying around the level always felt amazing and was loads of fun even without the necessity to have a set "goal" to accomplish. You even went so far as to add it into the game, so why not make use of it? Perhaps I just missed it, but I've collected all 120 stars and still have not seen it available in any of the normal levels. Obviously the hat couldn't be used in several places - ones in outer space that you generally "flew" around in anyway with pull stars or bubbles and the like - but even one measly "observatory" filled with 5-10 "bonus" or comets that would visit some of the bigger planets would've been enough.

I also missed the 100 coin stars and 'collect 8 red coin' stars, which were replaced with 'collect 100 purple coins' stars. The 100 purple coin stars were my least favorite because they generally involved exploring levels down to the most detailed of nooks/crannies, and while 95+ would be easy to find those last few would always take several minutes of not-so-fun backtracking to find. 'Hunt for the 8 red coins' was by far a better system, focusing on exploration combined with innovative or unique collection (flying, climbing, sliding, jumping, fighting, etc) rather than a laundry list of holes and corners to hide things behind. While these levels were generally still "fun" and I'd often find myself discovering new areas or "secrets" within each level I would revisit, overall it was always haunted by this fear of "great, how long will THIS collection take?".

"Comets" were a great way to "up the ante" for more hardcore gamers looking for a challenge, and generally were handled very well. I especially liked the daredevil challenge, as you faced the familiar while being required to not lose a single life. Sure, it could be frustrating at times, but you always knew it was because of something you did, not because you were "unlucky". Cosmic races weren't quite as fun or unique as the N64 versions that inspired them but still added a bit of variety to the challenges.

Overall, Galaxy was an incredible experience and one I cannot emphasize enough for any Wii owner. In all likelihood, though, you already knew that. So let's move on to...

Zack and Wiki

The game doesn't have a lot going for it from a "mass market" standpoint. Cartoony visuals combined with rather bland or uninspiring titles aren't exactly the one-two punch for a best seller, given the target market for Zack and Wiki is not going to be pre-teens. Whatever funding was lacking in marketing, however, must have been because they diverted all of their attention to gameplay, and it shows. Zack and Wiki is a "point and click adventure" which in this day in age has been relegated to "niche" status, barely holding it's own and scraping by as a genre. Games like Sam and Max and Phoenix Wright keep the genre going almost exclusively through well written (and often times humorous) plots more than the sense of "exploring" or puzzle. These games are good in their own right (I can only speak for Phoenix Wright, having never really played Sam and Max) but they fall very short of the genius that is Monkey Island.

So when Zack and Wiki was announced, quite a few heads turned... especially since the Wii platform offers such a unique opportunity to really push the game to a new level. And let me tell you, Capcom didn't just push, they SHOVED. The first few levels may be easy, but the difficulty quickly ramps up and each puzzle offers a unique solution (sometimes even two or three) that make full use of all of the Wii-motes many unique features. Gesture based actions (pushing/pulling), IR sensing (moving/blocking), position based actions (turning keys, attacking with swords) - just when you think you've seen it all, Campcom finds some other way to astonish and amaze you. Wiimote speaker? Wiimote Balancing? Wiimote Shaking? It's all here. And they don't feel "tacked on", either. Each one is deliberately and lovingly thought out to the point that many solutions could not simply be boiled down to "pressing a button". I can't go into too much detail without giving away some of the puzzles in the game, but with any other controller this game would more than likely have to rely too much on it's graphics and story (neither of which are really anything to write home about), and the game would lose quite a lot of its charm and character.

Speaking of which: personally, I enjoy the way the game is presented. It's not quite up to "Galaxy" levels, and the art style is definitely something that will be just as limited by personal taste as it was by artistic direction, but the more anime-inspired cartoon look really gives the game a life of its own. I will admit that I am a fan of the sort of "over the top" emotional response that come from these anime-like visuals, but everything from Zack's little "Victory Dance" to Captain Rose's "Angry" animations will almost always elicit a chuckle, if not an outright laugh. The character interaction is it's strongest point, showing off an impressive set of "emotion" responses that, while canned never seem to get old despite their overuse. There's no real "Voice Over" work, aside from a few simplistic "cheer" or "grunt" sounds (like, say, Mario or Zelda) which is both sad and good at the same time. Generally, new IPs offer the best option to adding Voice to a character because that character has yet to truly be "defined" in the minds of gamers. Zack and Wiki could have reached above and beyond, giving their already strong character line-up an extra level of "depth" with some quality voice work, but at the same time I can see how sticking to text was a better choice. Given the art style, the setting, and the select "voice" already available in the game, I can see how having to listen to this for prolonged periods of time would really start to grate the nerves and serve as a detraction from the overall experience, and not as an addition to it.

Despite it's flaws, Zack and Wiki remains a very solid title with beautiful presentation and ingenious gameplay. The lower price point ($40, and perhaps already dropped to as low as $30) only add to the value packed into this highly overlooked title. While I can safely assume that most Wii owners know about Galaxy and have made up their minds about it, Zack and Wiki seems doomed to be lost forever to almost zero marketing and stylized graphics. For your sake, as well as mine (I want a sequel!), please go buy this game. I can guarantee you will NOT be disappointed (if you are, there is something definitely wrong with you). It's not hard to miss this game when walking through the store, but it's hard not to fall in love with it once you pop it into your Wii's disc slot.

While we're on the topic of Nintendo, let's move to the Nintendo DS:

Final Fantasy XII : Revenant Wings

Most people know that I have an unnatural love affair with Square. In my younger, more naive years, slapping "Final Fantasy" on just about anything would have me immediately place it as a "Game of the Year" contender regardless of having ever even seen or played the game myself. $50 for "Final Fantasy: Cooking with Cid?". SIGN ME UP! But after a punishing myself on Final Fantasy X (who, as a game, I loved, but as a story I despised) and refusing to even acknowledge FFX-2 and FFXI as real games (a true sequel and an MMO? What was Square thinking?) and having my bank account nearly shattered by the release of Crystal Chronicles on Gamecube (loved the idea but could never get enough people/Gameboys/cables to complete it), I've become more skeptical of Square games. Tactics Advanced helped to woo me in a time of betrayal and abuse, but Square no longer gets the automatic seal of approval that it used to from me (This is left to Blizzard and Nintendo, it seems...). I had no chance to play Final Fantasy XII (I finally got my PS2 back, and now own a copy, so I'm working on that fact) but when it was announced that Square would make a "spin-off" of FFXII on the DS I simply groaned out my usual "who cares, another sequel" and went on my merry way. Then, I heard it was an RTS... and I started to pay a bit more attention. An RTS? On the DS? Can it be?!?

Sure, maybe Heroes of Mana did it first, but now we're talking an RTS with the story of an RPG on a system with a touch screen and a rather large world to build off of (FFXII received very high reviews, so I was hopeful here). Not being able to contain my desire for Phantom Hourglass gave me the perfect excuse to add FFXII: Revenant Wings to my Christmas list, and I can safely say it was a good choice.

The game plays sort of like WarCraft III, in that you have "hero" units with abilities and stats above and beyond your normal units. There is no real "resource management" in this game, so the gameplay is much more focused on the battles. The battle system is, overall, a positive for the game. Gambits help to remove the monotony of having to continuously watch all 5 characters and cast their magic spells without completely overpowering them (you only choose 1 spell to auto cast, so any others you still have to go and select manually). The diversity in level design is an added but possibly unnecessary bonus (it's not always "kill everything", although that usually works to complete the level, too) and, aside from the last boss and last few "free missions", you don't have to "grind" out levels. Controls can be somewhat frustrating, especially when trying to select just 1 specific unit/hero. Too much on the screen can make the slightly-imperfect touch screen stand out as a limiting input factor, but overall the touchscreen does a very good job of bringing RTS games to a platform that otherwise would have never worked.

The "Synth" system does quite a bit to overhaul the standard fare "buy better items" syndrome that tends to plague RPGs. You are offered the chance to purchase low and sometimes medium grade "ingredients", or go on a scavenger hunt to find that "high" quality piece that will really give you a big boost in stats. You can also "customize" the weapon to place a bit more emphasis in one area over another (say, stamina over speed, defense over damage, etc) through the use of cleverly worded (but sometimes rather ambiguous) "questions" about the characters or what you might do in certain hypothetical situations. It adds much more "strategy" to actually upgrading your weapons, considering you will have to share ingredients among several different units. So, if you use "high" quality on 1 or 2 characters, several others will be forced to use "medium" or "low"... or perhaps not get upgrades entirely until the next recipe book comes along. It would have been nicer if the game was a bit more forgiving on telling you where you could go to "find" these high quality materials, but perhaps that is a part of the "exploration" elements.

Overall, the game was quite enjoyable and offered a few dozen hours of impressive story telling, character development and, of course, it's fair share of large-scale battles. The last boss and free missions are more an excercise in annoyance than seems fair, but I suppose they are more the "Omega" weapon of this game. Having my level 50 units under constant and relentless attack from level 90 units was neither fun nor encouraging, but I'm sure someone sees this as a "challenge" and will try to grind it out until they can defeat them... but unless I become woefully lacking in games, this option does not seem likely for me. My units did not have enough HP to take on the last boss, so it did take grinding out 5 or 6 levels (and a few weapon / armor upgrades) to finally put an end to him, but if you find yourself focusing more on a core set of units (I tended to try and level them all equally) and play around in the "free battles" more (I only did 2 or 3 free battles up to that point) I'm sure things will go much easier for you.

Overall, the title comes recommended. It is hard to outright name it a sort of "MUST BUY" title, especially given that the DS has a HUGE library of amazing games, but if you like RTS or Final Fantasy I'm sure you can easily become engrossed in this game. My heart will always lie with more "turn-based" strategy games (Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced 2, where are you?!?!) but Square certainly deserves some credit for pushing their AAA productions outside of their established markets and into new territory.

To make this easier on me (and you, the reader) I'm going to break this one up into a few parts. Despite having "finished" or played enough of these games to write about them now, I'll leave it up to my next "rant" to give myself more time to prepare for it, and to not just hit you with a wall of text. Also, it leaves me a nice buffer zone in case I start to get behind in my games (which will probably start happening once I hit all of these 40+ RPGs I've got lying around.)

Left to do: Title (System)

Assassin's Creed (360)

Crackdown (360)

Call of Duty 4 (360)

Gears of War (360)

As you can see, the next post will probably be a little Xbox heavy (although AC and CoD4 are on the PS3/PC as well), so for the curious here's what I am currently chipping away at. You can expect to see mentions of these coming up in the not too distant future:

Upcoming: Title (System)

Blue Dragon (360)

Phoenix Wright 3 (DS)

Brain Age 2 (DS)

Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn (Wii)

Marvel Ultimate Alliance (360)

Achievement Unlocked! (Rant Version)

2007-12-22T23:47:00.000-06:00

Thank you for indulging me. Now that I've had a couple of nice days off, I'm ready to get back into ranting before the REAL holidays begin.

Most importantly, graduation. It is a very strange feeling, not having school to worry about. Ever since I started school at Georgia Tech it was like all I ever did was worry about school: what's that next project? When's the next test? What's my grade? What classes am I going to take next semester. Limitless questions, endless options, tons and tons of problems and always something new to look out for meant that even holidays were spent doing homework, working on group projects, or studying for tests. Now that I'm done done - not just "done with this semester, on to worrying about the next one" done - life seems so much more... enjoyable. Not that life at Tech wasn't enjoyable; while it was grueling and taxing it was also loads of fun and I made a plethora of new friends that I still talk to on a frequent basis. But when I was in school, I could never seem to really enjoy myself because there was always that other thing I knew I should be doing: studying, working, organizing, updating, researching.

Even though this week hasn't been easy on me - finding an apartment, setting up internet/gas/electricity, changing addresses and phones and all that moving nonsense - I've actually found that I enjoy myself even though I still feel rather busy. Maybe my mind has finally released its death grip from my emotions and allowed me to enjoy my free time with friends and family for a change, but after being home for the holidays it makes me half wish I had just taken a job here to be even closer to home because, aside from a few people, I really miss them and they are all people I really enjoy being around. Things have been so hard on my family recently - mother getting engaged, grandmother dying, my moving, brother bombing in college, lawsuits and financial issues and all that jazz - that I'd feel better being able to keep up with them week to week instead of month to month.

But, I know I'll enjoy myself in Austin - I still know quite a few people there, and I'm really near to 2 great friends - and being close to Houston will at least give me the capability of coming home if need be, even if $4 gas starts to scare me away from doing so.

It is odd to think of myself as a "adult", and I suppose that on some level I will never feel that way. I've always been a "son" and even though now I'm out of college and well on my own I still find a need to have a "parent" watching over me to make sure I'm not screwing up. Not of my own necessity, but just as a matter of... it has always been there and feels odd when it isn't. Finding an apartment on my own was probably the first LARGE decision I've made without ANY input from my parents, and while I know I did my research and know that I made the "right" decision, not having someone there who knew "the ropes" to look towards for a thumbs up or thumbs down kind of approval was very strange.

We'll see how life takes me from here: next up is actually moving - which should happen sometime before I start work on the 7th. Once I do start, my family swears up and down I'll be clamoring to go back to college... but at this rate, I sincerely doubt that.

In staying with the title, I'd like to take a few minutes to talk about Microsoft's "Achievement" system, which is a cross between the most genius and most fiendish thing I've ever seen added to a game system. While at first it seems like there isn't much to it, just some "score" to tell you what you've done in the game, if it is done right it really adds a lot of value and replayability to a game, not to mention challenge and, perhaps, bragging rights. There are several games that I've played on 360 that had their "game lifetime" extended significantly because I was trying to get more achievements points. XBLA games benefit from this especially, since theses kind of games tend to not have "goals" or a purpose and I would have quickly lost interest otherwise.

I am mesmerized by Hexic HD, stuck trying to get 75,000 points in timed or multiple black pearls simply because they are achievements. Kameo (which I'll talk about later) has some replability to it.... assuming it is not next to impossible to get "A" rankings in the score challenge mode. Carcassone was fun on it's own, but achievements made me play it more to try and get better and to challenge others online. Marble Blast Ultra (also later) gave achievements for both just beating a level and beating it on par time, which made me more likely to give levels several attempts when otherwise I would've just moved on (see: Mercury Meltdown). And while games like Metroid Prime: Corruption for Wii added an achievement-like system (basically playing Corruption gives you a type of "currency" you can spend on bonuses to the game depending on what you do), the system is not as well thought out or goal oriented as the 360 seems to be. In a day where games are taking fewer and fewer hours to beat (because they are charging you more for less), it is nice to have these extra "goals" to try and accomplish that add replay value and challenge to games I already own. Overall, it is an incredible system, and while it is not as "revolutionary" in terms of gameplay as the Wii was, it is still an incredible addition and I wish that all Wii games had the same thing.

Speaking of my 360, Rock Band has seen an INCREDIBLE amount of play recently. My roomates and I at GT became "Hall of Fame" inductees on medium (with me playing guitar), my other friends and I ended up getting about 3/4 of the way to Hall of Fame (with me singing), and even now my friends and I in Houston are attempting to play through the game on hard (with me playing drums). For the record, drums are HAAAAAARD. However, I find the drums the most fun to play, only because A) I'm already very good at singing so there is no real challenge aside from not falling asleep B) Drums are much more involved than singing or guitar and, while difficult, not as annoyingly difficult as guitar can be and C) because drums just feel more like playing a real instrument. My arms are flailing everywhere, sweat dripping down my brow, foot spasming from trying to do double taps without also tapping on the drum... all very difficult, but also very entertaining. I am getting better at them, but there are 1 or 2 rhythms that I just cannot for the life of me seem to be able to do, mostly revolving around alternating hitting the drum pad and tapping the foot petal during fast songs. Here's a hint, though: DON'T PLAY METALLICA. Songs are so much fun to play, but you basically just lose fans left and right because they are so hard. I mean, for us anyways. Not like we are the best of the best, I guess.

On other 360 news, Kameo (a launch title for the 360 back in 2005) is a rather fun game. I am not quite as sold on the way that their scoring system works, though. Basically, there are three different types of score multipliers: Carnage, Brutal, and Frenzy. As an action-adventure style game, there is alot of sort of free-range fighting with waves of enemies and mobs of trolls for you to dispense at your leisure. Every time you kill a troll, regardless of the circumstance, you get a "carnage" multiplier added. When you kill them in creative or especially brutal ways (for instance, pushing them off a cliff or throwing them into lava) you get a "brutal" multiplier. If you two trolls within 5 seconds of each other, you get a "frenzy" multiplier. So, obviously, it is better to get a hoard of trolls together and try to dispatch them as quickly and mercilessly as possible. Sounds easy, right? Ha. Think again. If you get hit, you lose multipliers. You also have a very limited set of movements and number of times you can use them before you have to wait for your power to replenish. By the end of the game I had somewhat gotten the hang of it, but I'm probably nowhere near to getting "A" scores on levels (required for Achievements), especially considering how many levels have random projectiles or awkward platformer-esque sequences. The game was certainly worth the $15 I paid for it, but at only 11 or so hours for game completion (if that, I'm being rather generous) and how bland the game looks (although for a launch game of the first "next gen" system, I may have been more impressed 2 years ago) I might have felt a little cheated if I had purchased it for $60. I'm glad I played it, but it was certainly no Banjo-Kazooie... which makes me worried about Banjo-Kazooie 3.

Marble Blast Ultra was a cheap little XBLA game that I purchased with some left over MS points after purchasing the Metallica songs for Rock Band... and a new Gamertag Avatar. (P.S. Can we please stop it with the point systems already? What am I going to do with that random 20 MS points or whatever that I have left?) The game is not nearly as difficult as Mercury Meltdown - most levels were beaten under par time on first attempt until I got up to the last 10-15, as opposed to Mercury Meltdown which has taken 3+ attempts since about the first 15 levels or so. Some of the last few Marble Meltdown levels, though, would be nigh-impossible for me to even consider getting under par time on. Just finishing them was impressive to me. I'd recommend it to anyone who likes marble-type games, it is fun and the online multiplayer could really extend its life, and for $5 or whatever the equivalent is you can't go wrong with a purchase. It is one of those games that I may play for a few minutes once a week or every other day just to have some fun and (slowly) work my way towards the online point collection achievement.

Lastly, let me leave you with a few impressions of Assassin's Creed. Having not played it extensively myself, but at least having a bit at a friend's, the game is quite fun and really achieves a good mix of "Prince of Persia" and "sandbox". I am amazed at home much fun simply climbing walls, running on roofs, or (my personal favorite), jump-assassinating guards can be even without following the actual plotline of the game. The game looks AMAZING in HD and, while it did have issues with freezing and glitching at first, it seems to have been fixed since then. Personally, I cannot wait to get this on my 360... but I'll have to hold out on playing until I get my HDTV so I can play it like it was meant to be played. No worries, though... I'm sure Super Mario Galaxy will keep me MORE than busy until then.

Achievement Unlocked!

2007-12-11T00:06:00.001-06:00

I'll actually write the rant later (once I'm not busy graduating or driving back to Texas) but here's a little something I threw together in honor of my graduating:

P.S. In case you want to know - and so I don't forget - the next rant should cover graduation, 360 achievements, Hall of Fame in Rock Band, Assassin's Creed impressions, Kameo, and Marble Blast Ultra. (Plus, of course, whatever else I think of.

Please don't review this (my advertisers will fire me)

2007-12-03T14:43:00.000-06:00

Wow. Talk about a very important week (at least to gamers). Two huge stories that have interesting and widespread implications. But first, what you are all waiting for: my latest game impressions!

Mercury Meltdown Revolution - Wow this game is both fun and hard at the same time. I'm only about 1/3 of the way through the game and already I'm pulling my hair out and having to stop myself from tossing my Wiimote out the window and on to the interstate. Of course, that's how I like my hybrid puzzle/marble/goo games... difficult. It's somewhat hard to play in my room, with the TV so low compared to how I stand. It strikes me as funny that even Wii games that do not require throwing your hands around the room or taking large swings require significantly more space than a standard game controller would. I suppose I could play the game with "standard" controls - i.e. just using an analog stick and moving the blob around, but really that takes all the fun out of the game. For $20, though, you CAN NOT go wrong picking this up.

Beautiful Katamari - If you've played one you've played them all, yet this game still does not seem stale to me at all. The music is significantly better than it was on We Love Katamari and the gameplay is just as solid. Only one of the levels is annoying to play, and that is merely because there is no "please make the king stop talking" option. $40 may seem like a steal, but downloadable content almost makes you feel like they held back on what they could have placed into the game in order to charge you even more to download stuff. That is sort of how downloadale contend has always been, though: skirting the fine line between expanding your gaming experience and finding clever ways of taking even more money from you. EA has certainly done well in overcharging, going so far as to ship items on disc and yet still requiring you to pay extra to merely 'unlock' it. HD graphics make the game look alot nicer, despite thinking that the simple graphics would not translate as well as more complex graphics would. Things look alot crisper and there's just more on the screen to see (and roll up!). This comes with a price, though, as there are some points where you will see huge drops in framerate. Not enough to destroy the gameplay, but you do notice it. Can't wait for the soundtrack to come out!

Rock Band - Finally, the choral equivalent to guitar hero. Sing, play guitar, play drums... whatever you want! Here's a hint, though: drums are HARD. Really, really hard. Guitar I picked up pretty easily (at least on medium), but drums on medium still feels very hard. This is more because my brain refuses to differentiate between my foot and my hand, but it's still very fun to play. Get 3-4 people together, make a band, tour the world. Singing is a blast, especially if you know the song. I'm already a vocal expert, but hey, I've been in choir over 11 years. Everyone I play with who claims they "can't sing at all" can do just fine even on medium (well, except 1 person, but he seems to be the exception to the rule). Just... don't try and sing the Coheed and Cambria song. EVER. It's like they just recorded a banshee wailing and force you to try and decipher a pitch out of that nonsense. Definitely my LEAST favorite song in the game.

Rock Band is $170, which is worth it if you have a few friends that will play it with you. If you'd rather go solo, you can always buy just the game ($60), a USB microphone if you have one, and a Guitar Hero II or III guitar will work fine for Bass or Guitar (unless you buy the PS3 version). The drums should go on sale separately in Q1 of 2008. Downloadable content really makes this game shine, adding in songs of your choosing for a modest price (like $5.50 for 3 song packs, not too shabby). I will definitely be purchasing the Metallica song pack as soon as possible, but other big names like The Police, The Who, David Bowie, and Weezer will round out the offerings for this year and who knows what next year may bring. Party game must have, solo player is more up to you. I'd certainly recommend it, though.

Carcassone - A free Xbox Live arcade game in honor of their 5 year anniversary, it's actually quite fun. A "board game" style using tiles where you try to gain points by building roads, cities, monestaries, and more. Online play is really annoying, though. It seems to take several attempts before you can finally get into a game with someone and even then people tend to leave the game if you seem to be handily beating them. It was a no brainer for free, but I'd suggest giving the demo a whirl before you shell out cash for it. Unless you plan on playing with a friend consistently or it just strikes you as alot of fun, the replay value may not go beyond what you can squeeze out of the demo.

Hexic HD - Another free Xbox Live arcade game (came with the 360), this puzzle game is fun but somewhat annoying. At later levels it seems to be nigh impossible, dropping colored bombs in areas that do not have a single matching color within 5 or 6 tiles and forcing you to hope that 2 colored tiles will fall into play so you can get rid of it. Also, screw whoever decided that 75,000 in timed mode was a good achievement - I'm convinced that score is either impossible or requires alot of luck. This is definitely a good "relaxing" puzzle game... so long as you don't let the exponentially growing difficulty get to you.

But enough of games, let's talk news. First off, the one I don't really care to comment on right now: Activision Blizzard. Mega-publisher Activision - who was arguably larger than EA this year - has merged with Vivendi Universal (owners of Blizzard, known for Warcraft/Starcraft/Diablo) to create Activision Blizzard, perhaps the largest gaming monster and now EA's biggest rival. I cannot imagine that having yet another huge powerhouse game publisher will be good for the industry - EA hasn't exactly been known for it's stellar titles - but perhaps the people at Blizzard will teach Activision a thing or two and finally show the industry what it takes to make a quality product. Not that Guitar Hero and Call of Duty haven't done quite well for Activision, but the Tony Hawk series has been on a steady decline in recent years and fans of Guitar Hero II will tell you that Guitar Hero III is showing the same signs. Will quality finally prevail over quantity (edited from "quality", sorry), or will Activision Blizzard become the new EA and drive the games I love into the ground for the sake of a few extra dollars? Only time will tell, but Blizzard is known for it's dedication to quality, so at least there is SOME hope.

The biggest news this week, undoubtedly, is Gamespot's firing of Jeff Gertsmann. While it is not certian that he lost his job due to his scathing "6.0" review of Kane & Lynch, a game that was being HEAVILY promoted on the site to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, it seems unlikely that it was for any other reason than to make an example of him. Jeff has been known for being harsh to games that generally get good reviews - he game Twilight Princess an 8.9, still a good score, but Nintendo fans have cursed his name ever since - but apparantly slamming the game when a company is paying you thousands of dollars for advertising doesn't sit well with the developing company.

This has always sort of been the giant gorilla in the room in the game industry - if a game you are advertising is bad, what do you do? If you give it a low score, then that advertiser might not come back to you. If you give it a higher score, you are basically cheating the people who are making a purchase decision on your seemingly unbiased review of a game. Tycho and Gabe over at Penny Arcade learned this the hard way, with Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, but they chose their integrity and their readers over their advertiser. They have since changed the way that they advertise on their site, only choosing ads for games they have played and enjoyed. Not something that could very well work for a site SOLELY dedicated to games and who relies heavily on ads (I'm sure the PA guys make quite a bit of money on shirts and books), but it does beg the question of what do these sites do now? How do they prove they are unbiased aside from sheer faith on the part of their readers?

I'm proud of Jeff for remaining faithful to his personal review and not caving in to management and advertisers to fudge the numbers, but can you really blame someone who is trying to make ends meet or feed his family for taking precautions when it comes to keeping his job? "Reviews" have always seemed like such an awkard and nebulous valley of entertainment - how do you rate feelings or "fun", especially when different people have fun at different things? My mother could care less about Ocarina of Time, but is actually interested in Wii Sports and Brain Age. Does that mean that Zelda is "bad", because she can't enjoy it? Do you simply rate it when compared to other action-adventure hybrids involving fairy boys and lost princesses and triforces? How do you "rate" horror films to someone who hates the genre? These aren't physical objects, with technical specs and tangible characteristics that can be measured and rated based on other similar pieces (This TV displays 720p and has a contrast ration of 10000:1, etc).

This, of course, makes for a troublesome paradox. You don't know if the game is good without playing it, but you need to play it to tell the game is good. You need some sort of review system in place, but to break games down into thousandths of a point and try to place all these hard numbers on such an intangible experience as enjoying entertainment is a very fickle game, indeed. I check reviews of games more for my own enjoyment (and read up to make sure the graphical glitches and technical hurdles do not take away from the experience). Personally, downloadable demos and playing games at a friend's house are my ways of finding that diamond in the rough, but I know it's tough for people who don't know others with game systems or who are friends with people like me that purchase games when they are 75% off and in a bargain bin (I jumped into Resident Evil 4 after getting the game used... it didn't even have a cover! THE SHAME!).

It doesn't help that in this industry, it seems like anything below an 8.0 will tank in sales. Which is odd, because I've played plenty of 70-80 range games and still enjoyed them (Beautiful Katamari and Mercury Meltdown both lie around there on Metacritic). Honestly, if you look at a '60' score for a game, you immediately feel "this must be terrible", whereas saying the game got 3 out of 5 stars (or, more simpler, a "thumbs up") would leave you with a better impression. Which is fine, because there shouldn't be a ton of AMAZING games out there. Many do end up being mediocre or small steps forward while the big fish wait in the wings, taking years to create and giant stockpiles of money to produce only to completely revolutionize the genre. Why does every RPG have to compare to the likes of FFVII (or, if you prefer, FFVI) and Chrono Trigger? Why must every platformer live under the shadow of Mario, and every FPS be compared to Halo and Half-Life?

Reviewers are obviously in a tough position. How do you help those who do not keep up with the industry (or the games) a quick-and-dirty answer to whether or not they buy a game, while still working together with advertisers to make money? Is it even possible anymore? Maybe we should only see ads for Full Sail Gaming College from now on (let us hope not!), but I certainly don't believe that reviews should go away: they are one of those necessities that just needs a little bit of tuning. Some of the best reviews I have ever read/heard were either from friends who have played the game, or from Tycho and Gabe over at Penny Arcade (who, also, have played the game). Even they, though, will be smart in a review. "This game isn't for people who don't like card games. For Card gamers, it's a 10/10. For everyone else, it's a 0/10". Something like that. My friends know that I don't like First Person shooters, so when I tell them Half Life 2 is crazy fun... they know that means something (they also know it means that it involves some kind of puzzle or exploration other sort of gameplay, because there's no way I'd be interested in it otherwise).

This may just is a hard lesson for both reviewers and consumers. Reviewers need to find a new way to monetize their business, one that does not place their "journalistic integrity" into question, and consumers need to make sure to read the fine print and see just who is paying the bills before you trust something that someone says. Or just use metacritic.com and take an average of several dozen reviews in order to make sure you wrinkle out any of the crooked numbers. Whatever your choice, you've alot of games to choose from this holiday season, 9.545424647473 out of 10 or no.

The Sands of Time

2007-10-20T21:48:00.000-05:00

Between my last two plane rides - once to go home to Houston for vacation, and once to go to Austin for an interview - I have completed The Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass. The game is alot of fun, and while it may be "short" it's a lot longer than Minnish cap was, not to mention all the extra stuff you could do to really extend the life of the game.

To say that the entirely touch screen implementation was a complete success would be lying - movement still seemed odd, especially when my right hand would cross in front of the screen because I was trying to quickly move left. Things like rolling on the ground felt awkward and never seemed to work right 100% of the time; instead, I'd end up just slashing in that direction or making Link walk like some drunkard. It did not get me killed or anything serious, but it did prevent me from using those moves, especially when in the heat of battle, and provide a little frustration here or there.

However, to say the touch controls are a complete flop is not only a lie, but a great disservice to the game's greatest strength: it's uniqueness. How Link handles items in game is so refreshing and so much "fun" that it can take some of even the most basic puzzles and give a smile while you are playing it. It's hard to not enjoy drawing your own path with a boomerang or guiding a bombchu directly into an enemy or switch. It's hard to not draw on the map, and allows the game to drop you far more "clues" throughout the game for you to piece together, instead of having to rely on writer's hand-feeding you choice pieces of information over and over again to make sure you don't forget it. When you've beaten a dungeon or explored the ocean and you see all your notes scribbled everywhere with notes like "How do I reach this?!?!" or "big treasure here" it just makes interacting with the world much more fun and less running around at random or memorizing enormous dungeon maps.

If you own a DS, you owe it to yourself to get this game. It's a breath of fresh air, and proves once again that the basic Zelda formula can be applied to a new game mechanic and feel like it's a completely new experience unlike any other Zelda you've ever played. I guarantee, you would not be disappointed.

But enough about Zelda, let's get to ranting. This is something I've wanted to talk about for a long time, but have never found the right opportunity to do so. This past week has given me the spark I need to finally get this out in the open.

Consoles. These mystical, magical devices provide some of the greatest gaming experiences of my time - Final Fantasy VII, Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess - but at the same time it seems to have created a sub-culture in the gaming industry, where everything is a war and you must fight tooth and nail at every moment to prove your console of choice superior to all others in every single way possible, simultaneously, and watch them bow in shameful defeat whilst you gloat about your amazing "exclusives" and praise those whom provide you your daily sustenance of electrons. Why someone would take this insanely high level of devotion towards a video game company is striking at best, and annoying beyond all reason the rest of the time. Reading Digg's gaming stories (or IGN... or Slashdot... or basically anything that has to do with gaming and allows comments), you would think that this was the Presidential election (wait, nevermind, there's more interest than that seems to garner) or some religious debate (although, to some, gaming may indeed be a religion of sorts).

But, no, it is just some lost fool's completely misguided devotion to a single, "do no wrong" entity. What drives these people to such madness? What creates "X-bots", or the "Sony Defence Force", or Nintendo "Fanboi's"? The only thing I can even begin to compare it to is Apple's loyal following, who (though small in number) have created a community so tight knit and engulfing that once Apple released a product that was actually a commercial success, it seems to have spread like a freaking disease, turning normal people into completely unreasonable product zombies. What causes such a crazy, innate desire to defend a company at all costs?

Well, I have my theories, although most of them are drawn from my own experiences. While I try to stray away from the usual "I love company X and they can do no wrong", I am not without my preferences when it comes to games. Certian companies - namely, Blizzard, Square-Enix, and Nintendo - do get some benefit of the doubt because they have proven time and time again that the games they make will be top notch, AAA titles that will define genres and stay in my console (or PC) for years or even decades without feeling old or boring. When a company has several franchises that it consistently performs well with (Starcraft, Warcraft, Diablo... or Mario, Zelda, Metroid) it's hard to treat these masters of the business the same as one might treat, say, Electronic Arts, who's only legacy is that they have stockpiles of money and can buy you up whenever they start running out of ways to profitably resell the same Madden game each year for $60.

That's not to say, however, that these companies are flawless. Nintendo has more than it's fair share of mistakes - Virtual Boy, Cartridges, Online, Friend Codes, to name very few - so when someone feels the need to complain about these things, I can whole heartedly agree. Currently, Nintendo's greatest faults (despite it's numerous successes) is the butchering of the Gamecube to promote the Wii (Twilight Princess, Super Paper Mario, etc), the insistence on using "Friend Codes" instead of something halfway reasonable like personal name tags, and lack of true High Definition gaming.
I'd even settle for 720p - a good step forward without the price tag of forcing 1080p - but instead I'm stuck playing games in 480p which we've had available for almost the past 5 years. Yes, HD adoption rates are still relatively low over all, but that number will more than likely swing the other way within the next year or two, and the Wii will start to look worse compared to the crisp, vibrant picture of even a 720p output. Halo 3, which only runs at 640p, may not look much different from Halo2 in terms of style, but seeing it on a HDTV makes everything like crisper and significantly better than the bland, blocky look of Halo 1 and 2. I won't even go into games like Gears of War or MGS4, which look simply stunning visually. And while I'm glad I didn't have to shell out $300 or (even $500 or $600) for my Wii, I do wish that some more horsepower could've been placed into the Wii to at least push out 720p content once developers got familiar with the platform.

Does this make the Wii terrible? No. I still love the system, and play it frequently. Nintendo has certainly proven it can still innovate and be creative in a business that was slowly stagnating into "the same old with more power!", and significant credit should be given for the Risk they took in marketing the Wii (and, before it, the Nintendo DS). But why do Nintendo "fanboys" have to act like the Wii will make incredible looking games, or that the friend code system is "great", or that any of the other flaws Nintendo still suffers from don't exist? It's the same with Sony fans trying to justify the flaws of the PS3 (let's not go THERE) or an "X-bot" shrugging off the Red Rings of Death as though massive failures in hardware units should be acceptable. These are still companies, and the only thing that they care about (WARNING: Generalization ahead. Not to be taken to be 100% accurate for everyone it encompasses) is making money.

So why are there people who, day in and day out, fight for these entities as though they are their best friends? Are they afraid they will feel foolish or laughed at because they bought a flawed product? Or that explaining away abuses of power will someone cause other people to jump ship and fight for the "just cause"? Why can't I just enjoy my games and you enjoy yours?

To me, having more than 1 console is a great thing, contrary to EA's desire to have only one. Let's face it, name the last time that an industry turned into a monopoly and it was GOOD for the consumer? If Sony was the only game in town... we'd have to still be using Betamax, UMD, or any other of their failed standards that try to lock you down (Rootkits, anyone?). If Nintendo was the only game in town, we wouldn't be playing games via the internet and would probably still have sweat coming out of our enemies when we hit them. Microsoft, well, we wouldn't have any products that actually work on a reliable basis. ;) But because Xbox Live was such a big hit, Sony and Nintendo are now providing online gaming. Because Sony has been pushing HD, Microsoft updated the 360 to run games at 1080p (or is it 1080i?) and to add an HD-DVD addon. Nintendo has been there to once again completely reinvent the wheel, and to show us that gaming, when marketed correctly, can become a mass-market entertainment device.

So I don't understand when someone wishes for their brand to succeed and the others to fail. Are PS3 owners glad that Sony had to have Microsoft Mop the floor with their Internet offerings before finally getting serious about online? Are Nintendo owners hoping that Microsoft and Sony will disappear so Nintendo can focus on Nintendogs 2 and lose focus on games like Project HAMMER and Disaster: Day of Crisis? Or, perhaps, be stuck at 480p NEXT generation too, with friend codes? Or maybe Microsoft's fan base would love to send their 360's in for repair every 6 months and severely over-hyping even the blandest of games through powerhouse marketing and running billions of dollars in debt every year.

Personally, I want all 3 companies to succeed. Competition will continue to breed better results, and Nintendo's return to the top is already causing Sony to take desperate action and Microsoft to extend it's warranty. Maybe Next generation Microsoft will draw the luck of the cards and it will be Nintendo's turn to once again play second fiddle while it improves it's offerings. Whatever it is, competition has given us all the things that make consoles great today - online functionality, improved involvement (via Wii or Sixaxis), better graphics and expanded ideas.

But please, fanbois, give it a rest. It's great that you love your system, but it's not flawless. Just stay at home and enjoy your games in peace, and hope that this generation stays close so that NEXT generation, we'll see even better improvements as each party fights to win our support and our money. And that, end in the end, means that we gamers will be the true winners. I just hope we aren't winners just in the month of november (seriously, couldn't they release some of these games earlier or later instead of dropping 120+ titles onto the market in 1 month?).