Mass of Text

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?

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.