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[It's like the Sonic version of Justice League!]

101

TalkBack / REVIEWS: Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood

« on: February 08, 2009, 12:12:07 AM »

It's like the Sonic version of Justice League!
 http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/reviewArt.cfm?artid=17705

 Poor Sonic can’t get a break. Everyone’s favorite blue hedgehog hasn’t starred in a decent console game since the excellent Sonic Adventure for Dreamcast (later ported to the GameCube). Well, along comes Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, a strong effort by BioWare, developer of such RPG heavyweights as Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire. True to form, Chronicles is an RPG that bizarrely hybridizes platforming, turn-based combat, and BioWare’s obsession with dialogue trees. Super Mario RPG is probably the most comparable game, but Sonic Chronicles does not rise to the lofty standard held by the SNES masterpiece. Still, while Chronicles’ failures somewhat outweigh its triumphs, the game does have its moments.    

For one, the story is interesting. After the supposed final defeat of Dr. Eggman, Sonic takes a well-deserved vacation but returns home to find Knuckles kidnapped, local wildlife acting hostile, and Eggman’s old droids stirring up trouble. With Amy in tow, Sonic sets out to investigate. Without ruining anything, in the first few hours of gameplay, you find Knuckles, your party size swells to eight members, and your true enemies are revealed. And you’ve probably gotten your ass handed to you a dozen times by the frustrating combat system.    

Battles are not so much challenging as ridiculously long. Minor overworld enemies provide a considerable challenge, even when you clearly out-level them. Lots of enemies, and I mean lots, regenerate health either at the start of a new round or after attacking you. This is okay when they leech health at a 1:1 ratio (or lower), but when a bad guy hits you for 29 damage and regains ALL of his health it's called overkill,  and it is a rampant problem. Another problem is that your team, which eventually includes more than ten members, is not well balanced. For example, Rouge is useless, save for her one armor-piercing special attack. Once you incorporate Cream (the requisite healer) into your active party of four characters, the need for HP and MP-replenishing items is largely done away with. Meanwhile, Sonic and Knuckles provide all the muscle you’ll need, and fights are rarely won through alternate means. Tails has the ability to stun robots, but why stun an opponent when you can just attack it? Special moves tend to have elemental affinities which, in theory, are more potent against certain enemies, but it’s never obvious which element affects which enemy type, so exploiting them requires way too much trial and error.    

All special attacks leverage the touch screen. Let’s say you want to use Sonic’s Blue Bomber attack. First, you have to keep your stylus in the center of a circle as it moves across the screen. Then, you have to tap a different circle with the stylus at the right moment (when it turns green). Then repeat the moving circle trick, and tap two more circles. Sometimes it takes a dog’s age to perform a single special attack.  Problems that crop up with touch detection and stylus movement speed only make things worse. The game will often think you’re sliding the stylus too slowly, or you’re not tapping the circles at exactly the right moment. The worst part is that if you don’t connect the dots exactly right, your attack will be weakened or, worse, fail entirely. Many special attacks—I’d say the majority of them—rely on two or more characters being active at the same time. Sonic’s Blue Bomber attack requires both him and Tails, for example. Other attacks require more characters. Since many party configurations produce ineffective combo attacks,  this really limits your options when choosing party members. All in all, the battles are frustrating, and I was never able to get into a comfortable rhythm, even during minor skirmishes. By the end of the game, players will actively avoid confrontations and dread every fight they engage in.    

 Map exploration is pretty fun, though. Maps are 2D and require character-swapping to solve puzzles, as certain structures can only be navigated by certain characters. For example, only Sonic can zip around a loop, and only Amy can smash boxes. Maps are designed with a Super Metroid progression in mind. Can’t get up that wall? Come back with Knuckles. Tails and Rogue can’t fly that far yet? Level them up until their movement bonus gets an upgrade. One common upgrade comes in the form of Chaos. Found lying about the maps, they can also be equipped by characters to provide combat bonuses. They are randomized, so you never know what kind of Chao you will get until you pick it up. There are forty different Chaos, and to get all of them, you will need a whole lot of luck and/or a friend to trade with. The platforming sections are the game’s great strength, but they sadly take a backseat to the combat.    

Sonic Chronicles is an interesting experiment, and from the game’s cliffhanger ending, a sequel is clearly in the works. Hopefully it will fix this game's touch screen controls and other frustrating combat issues. The storyline, art direction, and world exploration are top-notch here, but the tiresome combat sucks the life out of an otherwise enjoyable adventure. The Sonic faithful will like this one, but everyone else can be safely assured that they aren’t missing much.

Pros:
       

Storyline incorporates tons of old and new characters

 

Graphics and musical score are wonderful

 

Platforming and world exploration are fun

       Cons:
       

Combat feels different, but in a disappointing, forced way

 

Battles go on for too long and level grinding is discouraged

 

Most characters feel like dead weight

               Graphics:  8.0
       Character models are beautiful 3D, and backgrounds are happily 2D, but most of the enemy models got the ugly stick. There are way too many instances of palate swaps.

               Sound:  7.0
       The soundtrack is great, with catchy tunes and retro sound effects. The music brings back memories of the old Genesis games. I don’t care for the combat sound effects, though, and character yelps seem bizarrely out of place.

               Control:  5.0
       This is certainly the low point. Everything is touch screen-based, and while that’s fine for map exploration and menu navigation, it is implemented poorly in combat, where it matters most.

                      Gameplay:  5.0
       This game really suffers from its tedious combat. The puzzles outside of battle are a joy, but there aren’t enough of them.

 

       Lastability:  7.0
       Sonic Chronicles takes about sixteen hours to beat, and there aren’t many side-quests. Those that do exist are tied to the main storyline, so they're hard to miss. The branching dialogues provide some incentive for replaying the game, if only to select all of Sonic’s sarcastic responses in conversations just to see what happens.

 

       Final:  6.0
       The game’s high production values are betrayed by the severely lacking combat. BioWare’s new take on the franchise is promising and warrants some praise, but the gameplay definitely could have used more polish.      

[One of these days, Alice, I’m gonna make a great shooter for the DS!]

102

TalkBack / REVIEWS: Moon

« on: January 26, 2009, 04:36:40 PM »

One of these days, Alice, I’m gonna make a great shooter for the DS!
 http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/reviewArt.cfm?artid=17607

 Moon is a spiritual sequel to Dementium: The Ward, a game I reviewed early last year and gave mediocre marks. While Moon utilizes the same engine as Dementium, it is an entirely different game. Developer  Renegade Kid threw off the survival horror shackles and focused on simply creating a competent shooter, and for the most part they have succeeded. Sure, there’s a hiccup here or there, but this is one of the best first person shooters on the DS. My big problems with Dementium involve the loose gunplay, useless map, and horrifyingly outdated save system. Moon fixes most of these problems, but in doing so creates a few of its own.    

The game opens on, predictably, the moon in the near future. A science base has been erected, and the scientists have discovered Lost-like hatches scattered across the lunar surface. A team is sent down to investigate, but true to genre convention, they disappear. You are called in to provide reconnaissance and, hopefully, find your missing colleagues.  Down the hatch you go, and in doing so you step into a heavily fortified world patrolled by drones and extraterrestrial soldiers armed to the hilt and ready for war. As you explore the machinery-packed corridors, you discover a terrible extraterrestrial plot and the records of the soldiers who came before you.    

Most of the time you are confined to subterranean facilities, and this is where the game excels. Like Dementium before it, the control scheme has been lifted from Metroid Prime Hunters, minus the ability to jump.  Switching weapons is seamless, as you merely touch the weapon icon and then slide your stylus to the weapon you want. Different firearms are gained slowly, but all the normal FPS weapons eventually show up: pistol, shotgun, sniper rifle, grenade launcher, etc. They are created from alien technology, though, and look really cool. Renegade Kid thought outside the box here—I especially like the look of the Lepton Spread (shotgun). A particularly ingenious feature in Moon is a controllable reconnaissance droid that can scope out maintenance tunnels. The Remote Access Droid (RAD) is equipped with its own stun gun and can get through any given area pretty quickly. Most often, the RAD is used for disabling force fields, though there are times where the player will have to switch from RAD to soldier and back again to get through an area. The RAD is also useful for finding alien artifacts and other pickups.   Walking is initially jarring in that your soldier bobs up and down almost as though he were floating in water. He definitely has a bounce to his step that’s difficult to ignore at first, but you quickly get used to it.    

Shooting things is a little frustrating sometimes—the farther the object, the less accurate your shot. This seems logical until you actually experience it. You’ll be aiming in the right spot but still somehow miss the mark. Also, boss fights are best fought from a distance, making the overall loose aiming unnecessarily annoying.    

Speaking of the boss fights, they’re really hard. Except for maybe two of them, these brawls will take awhile. First, the bosses tend to have tons of health. Second, their attacks are very damaging. Third, and perhaps most importantly, they tend to spawn helper droids to assist in mauling you. Some players will like the challenge, but I really hate dying six times before succeeding. What’s also irritating is that there is a dearth of boss types. For instance, you’ll fight one particular boss three times, each incarnation more annoyingly difficult than the last. Happily, the final boss is prone to getting stuck in animation loops, so he’s easy pickin’s compared to his subordinates.    

Moon has a second side that’s not quite as fun as the FPS stuff: driving a Warthog around the surface. Now, it’s called LOLA in the game, but it feels like the Warthog from Halo. The little rover works pretty well. It’s just that there are arbitrary and frustrating time limits into the LOLA missions. That, in addition to unfortunately-placed checkpoints, makes getting from place to place kind of a hassle. The rover isn't game-breaking, and it is wisely confined to the first third of the game, but the whole driving experience would’ve been a lot more enjoyable without the time limits. There is also one bug with the rover that can end your game. It's actually an easy fix, though, so it's not as bad as it could've been.    

The game looks incredible for a DS game and lasts as long as a console FPS. Finding all the journal entries, alien artifacts, and HP/ammo expansions might take some time, although none of them are terribly hard to find. For every three alien artifacts you discover, a bonus mission is unlocked in Quick Play mode, so the total number of stages in the game is much larger than how many are in Adventure  Mode.  There is no multiplayer option, which is kind of disappointing in that it limits the game’s replay value significantly, but there’s still a lot of content. The save system is competent, with save points scattered throughout each level, and the map is awesome. Thus, my biggest complaints regarding Dementium have been tactfully taken care of here.    

Moon is a great first person shooter for the DS, despite some unfortunate design decisions. It's up there with Metroid Prime Hunters and Call of Duty 4. Well, aside from the timed driving.

Pros:
       

Looks incredible

 

Awesome control scheme

 

RAD side-quests are always enjoyable and fairly innovative

 

Cool art direction

       Cons:
       

The soundtrack makes me cry

 

Aiming is a little too loose

 

The timed LOLA missions

               Graphics:  8.0
       Everything is in glorious 3D, and most things that move are animated well. The art direction is very moody and alien, especially the last few areas. The moving machinery is fun to watch.

               Sound:  3.0
       Most of the sound effects are new, but some have been lifted from Dementium. They’re all perfectly acceptable and believable, though. However, the music is atrocious. I will mince no words here: plug your headphones into your iPod instead.  I understand that the developers were going for some kind of alien-mechanical vibe, but it ends up sounding like a dying cat.

               Control:  8.0
       The game controls just fine, thank you very much. Even the LOLA missions control well. The aiming is a little too loose, but it’s hard to tell when it’s user error versus the game.

                      Gameplay:  8.0
       The gameplay almost never feels repetitive, which is a miracle given that Moon is a corridor shooter. The only exceptions are the boss fights, which are overly difficult and too often recycled. The FPS sections are great, and the LOLA stuff would be, too, were it not for the aggravating time limits.

 

       Lastability:  7.0
       Moon’s hard mode really is hard, so the Adventure mode will last you a long time.  After you collect all the alien artifacts, the bonus missions will provide a lot more content, most of it just as fun as the main game.

 

       Final:  8.0
       Moon is one of the system’s best first person shooters. While it has no multiplayer, the story is engaging, the gunplay is fun, and it’s impressively long.      

103

TalkBack / An Informal Movie Review: Resident Evil: Degeneration

« on: January 06, 2009, 07:26:50 AM »

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/blogArt.cfm?artid=17491

  Aside from the Metal Gear Solid series, I can’t think of another video game franchise with such a long-running and involved story as Resident Evil. There are heroes and villains, monsters and zombies, biohazards and heartbreak—what’s not to love? However, I’m somewhat of a snob when it comes to plotlines. I don’t give the time of day to non-canonical content, including the horrendous Resident Evil live-action trilogy (starring Mila Jolovolavich), so I was a little apprehensive when I heard about Resident Evil: Degeneration, a fully CG film starring Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield. Would the movie be canonical, or merely an excuse to get the former RE2 stars in the same room again? Turns out it’s both. The film takes place one year after the events of RE4 and serves as a bridge between that game and the next one, RE5. Degeneration also marks my first Blu-Ray purchase!    

Since Umbrella Corporation’s untimely demise by the combined efforts of Albert Wesker, Chris Redfield, and Jill Valentine in 2003, a new biotech firm has begun research on the T-Virus: WilPharma, which is being protested against for vaccine trials in India. The company is publicly supported by slimy senator Ron Davis, who is either a very blubbery human being or a very small beluga whale. Claire Redfield arrives in an airport in Harvardville (seriously? Harvardville?) to pick up a friend’s niece, and within minutes, a zombie-filled plane crashes into the terminal and the undead shenanigans begin anew! The marines are called in, as is Leon S. Kennedy, who still works directly for the President. The two former Raccoon City stars, along with some new friends, discover a new monster (it’s the G-Virus this time, kiddies) and an interesting conspiracy along the way. The consequences of these events will be felt in RE5, I guarantee it. Sadly, Wesker’s hand does not appear to be in this particular pie, but you can bet he benefited from the fallout.    

If you’ve watched any of the movie’s multiple online trailers, you’ve probably thought to yourself, “that doesn’t look a whole lot better than a modern video game cutscene.” In fact, that’s basically true. The setpieces, though, are really spectacular and epic in scope. The human characters suffer from a non-stylized look, and that Uncanny Valley rears its ugly head. It’s not that the characters don’t look or act believable, it’s that they don’t match the stunningly realistic environments. Some of the animation, most of which was mo-capped, is unnaturally fast, but in general, the movie looks wonderful. It takes a few minutes to acclimate yourself to the portrayal of non-zombified human characters, but once you accept the aesthetic, you’ll be fine. It’s interesting to see what the modelers did with Claire and Leon. Claire’s original RE2 and RE: CV models are low-res and blocky, so the developers had to basically build her from the ground up, and they did a wonderful job. Leon, however, already has a perfectly acceptable model from RE4, but they changed his facial structure significantly here. He has a longer face and smaller eyes. It sounds like small potatoes, but it’s very distracting for those familiar with RE4. Leon is also the worst actor—while every other character displays a range of emotions in both their facial geometry and body language, Leon is immobile. The best character is undoubtedly Angela, a Special Response Team member who befriends Leon. She has depth and soul, and there’s a subtlety in her movements that’s lacking in the other main characters.    

Sadly, the film is lacking good special features. There’s a lengthy and interesting “making of” documentary, but I was really jonesing for some concept art or animatics, neither of which is included here. There are two RE5 trailers which we’ve probably all seen before by now. The Blu-Ray disk has some PiP (Picture-in-Picture) stuff, but it’s not especially noteworthy. By the way, I recommend the Blu-Ray version if you have the means—as the film is completely CG, it will look better there. My rule with Blu-Ray is this: If the movie is animated or relies very heavily on CG-effects, go with it. Otherwise, you won’t be missing anything on the DVD. Blu-Ray is a superior technology for displaying digital effects. A movie like Wall-E will look mesmerizingly awesome on Blu-Ray. Some Like It Hot will look no different than the DVD you already own.    

I hope Capcom continues down this road. Resident Evil has a great cinematic quality to it, and seeing a movie in the years between game releases could be a great way to give fans their zombie kick. If you like Resident Evil, I highly recommend Degeneration.

104

TalkBack / Making the Review Process Better

« on: January 03, 2009, 09:20:16 PM »

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/blogArt.cfm?artid=17476

  I have a friend who often asks me for advice about video game purchases. He has both a PS3 and an Xbox 360. Despite my lack of owning the latter, it doesn't stop him from asking me "what I've heard" or "what I've read." And that's fine. I like being the go-to guy for gaming-related decisions. He often calls me at the store, game in hand, and says, "What do you think of Mirror's Edge?" I liked the demo, I tell him, but published reviews have been all over the map. Game Informer, EGM, and Play liked it, but Edge hated it, and even among the publications who gave it high marks, they were quick to point out its faults. I rattle off a list of review scores I've seen, thus illustrating the bipolarity of the press regarding Mirror's Edge. Then he asks me a question that renders all of those scores irrelevant: "But is it fun? Will I like it?"    

Those are much tougher questions to answer. I daresay they are impossible to address in a standard number-based review format. Here's an example that hits close to home. Back when I first started here at NWR, my editors sent me Phantom Hourglass, a game I gave mediocre marks. The ensuing Talkback thread ballooned to eight pages of people yelling at me, proving beyond a doubt that enjoyment of ANY game, even one from a well-respected franchise, is completely subjective. Many people thoroughly enjoyed the very aspects of Phantom Hourglass that I criticized. And you know what? Nobody is wrong. I'm not wrong in giving the game a 7.5, and they're not wrong for giving it closer to a 10. The numbers don't mean anything.    

Here's another example: Beyond Good & Evil is one of my favorite all-time games. Were I to review it today, with my NWR reviewer hat on, I would give it average scores in all counts. The graphics are kind of all over the place, the music is good in places, the control scheme is a little floaty, partner AI is questionable, and the game just can't decide what it wants to be. However, even though each criteria (Graphics, Sound, Control, Gameplay, Lastability, Final) would get average marks, only the final score, which here at NWR we disconnect from the others, gives any indication of how great the game is. BG&E would get 6's and 7's across the board, but probably a 9 from me at the bottom. BG&E has an emotional core that, until I played it, I had not experienced in a video game (except the MGS series). Now the inverse: I gave Phantom Hourglass fairly high marks in each individual category, but a lower final score.    

Graphics, sound, control, none of this matters. What matters is whether the game is good or not. All you need is a final score. And even then, the final score is not definitive. I didn't like Phantom Hourglass, but many of my readers loved it. I love BG&E, but I know a lot of people who don't or wouldn't. I think Wario Land: Shake It! is one of the best games of 2008, but most publications barely gave it the time of day. It's all subjective, even the final score. It's just like my buddy asked me: "But is it fun? Would I like it?"    

These are not questions I can put into numerical form. Whether you, the reader, will like a game or not is not a question I can answer. I can tell you that I, personally, thought the game was great (or sucked). Hell, there might be a guy out there who really liked Homie Rollerz. Me? I hated it, and I think you good people would similarly despise it, so I told you not to waste your time or money. And that's all I can really do. Scores don't mean anything. All I can do is tell you what my experience with any given game was. You might agree or disagree, but ultimately you have to make that call.    

My feeling is that "scores" have stuck around to benefit aggregator sites, like MetaCritic and GameRankings. Review scores are collected at those sites and the resulting average affect things like stock prices, funding, and, ultimately, the consumer. It's a dirty business--one that leads to questionable situations like publishers allegedly bribing reviewers for higher numerical scores, or reviews being canned after giving a highly-advertised game a low score. Numerical values hold a lot of weight, more than I think they actually have.    

If it were up to me, reviews would simply be narrations of one player's experience with any given game. Play and Edge, two of the more progressive gaming publications out there, have dramatically reduced the number of numbers in their reviews. One of them gives a final score, and the other has done away with scores entirely, leaving readers with a short "parting shot," basically the text that would go under NWR's "Final" score. Think about it--would that Phantom Hourglass review have been so lambasted were it lacking numerical scores? I really doubt it. You can argue about subjective scores, but it's tough to tell somebody that their opinion is wrong. I didn't like the game, simple as that, but you might. Numbers are infinitely more concrete than language.    

The value of a game cannot be measured in terms of math, only experience and personal taste. What do you guys, as the readers, think of the standard review format? Do numbers help you? And if so, how?

[Hardware limitations aside, this couldn't have turned out any better.]

105

TalkBack / REVIEWS: Tomb Raider: Underworld

« on: December 24, 2008, 08:32:24 PM »

Hardware limitations aside, this couldn't have turned out any better.
 http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/reviewArt.cfm?artid=17448

 Tomb Raider was having a rough time until a few years back when Crystal Dynamics (best known for their Legacy of Kain series) took over and rebooted the entire franchise with Tomb Raider: Legend. Although it had its faults, Legend was the start of something great—a rebirth of the traditional platformer in which you didn’t hop around the environment as much as clamber around on it, all the while solving wonderfully thought-out puzzles based on a realistic physics system. The series has continued with Anniversary and, now, Underworld. If you haven’t at least tried these games yet, you should, because they’re awesome. And I can’t recommend Underworld highly enough, no matter which system you have—and that includes the DS!    

On the DS, Underworld is a 2D side-scroller, but it features all the environmental challenges you’d find on its bigger cousins. In fact, Lara’s move set is almost as vast, and allows her to tackle a wide range of difficulties. She can shimmy across ledges; vault up from a hanging position; grapple across gaps; climb ropes, ladders, and rocky walls; and look good while wielding a wide range of guns. All of these movements are beautifully animated and easy to pull off. There will rarely be a time when you don’t know what to do next.    

Although Underworld is a side-scroller, the entire game is rendered in 3D. All of the character models and environments run on a surprisingly powerful engine. Even most of the pickup items are polygonal models. And there is never any slowdown! But what really flabbergasts me are the wonderfully smooth animations. Lara herself looks just as agile and flowing as her console counterpart. She struggles to find handholds, quickly moves across ledges as her legs dangle back and forth, and uses a breaststroke kick underwater. This is really first-rate 3D on the DS. There is a cost here, however. Unlike the console games, Lara does not traverse enormous, uninterrupted worlds. Rather, the game is broken into levels, each level is broken up into many stages, and each stage has a considerable load time. The loading screens have load screens. It’s nothing game-breaking, but it quickly becomes noticeable. However, this DS game features almost all of the cinematic sequences from the console games, which is awesome. They are lower resolution, sure, and the voice quality is a bit compromised, but fitting them onto a DS card is an achievement in itself.    

The developers even figured out a way to use the DS system's unique features without them feeling shoehorned. In almost every stage you can find a treasure chest. To open the chest, you must slide Tetris-shaped blocks around to fit an empty space. This puzzle is a welcome change from the jumping and shimmying of the main game, and gives your brain a little workout in the process.  Opening a chest successfully nets you a piece of concept art. Additionally, certain tasks require the use of the touch screen and microphone to blow dust off an ancient rune, chisel away hardened rock, or configure a Mayan calendar. While you're working on the touch screen, the top screen shows what Lara is doing. When you blow into the mic, she bends over and blows onto the rune. This attention to detail is fantastic, and helps make Underworld on the DS a must-try. There’s even Rumble Pak support, recommended for those who have the peripheral.    

My only complaints are minor. First off, the game is really dark. I mean, really dark. For best results, I recommend turning the DS Lite’s brightness to its highest, and most battery-draining, setting. Second, the mini-game instructions don’t always tell you when you must drag something away with the stylus after blowing off the dust. When in doubt, drag something. Third, and this is a problem I have with the console games, too, the combat is fairly mindless.  Winning is just a matter of locking on to the enemy and holding down the fire button while jumping to avoid being eaten or shot. Even when Lara is wielding her supposedly best weapon, combat is still unwelcome. Happily, combat is not an enormous component of the game. It probably boils down to 80% platforming, 10% puzzle solving (not including treasure chests), and 10% combat.    

The game does not last very long. In fact, I was able to play through the entire thing and find all the treasure chests and relics (which unlock more concept art) hidden in each stage during a six-hour plane ride. I only had difficulties with a single treasure puzzle, and only one relic escaped my immediate grasp. Of course, you can replay a stage at any time, so that relic was found mere minutes later.    

I wish there were other unlockables besides concept art (another problem shared with the console games), but at the end of the day, Tomb Raider: Underworld on the DS is a great game that any DS owner would be silly not to at least try.

Pros:
       

Astounding graphics

 

Cutscenes from the console games

 

Control scheme is elegent and easy to use

 

Great use of the platform's unique features in puzzles

       Cons:
       

Sound quality in cutscenes ain't so great

 

Suprisingly dark--use the DS Lite's brightest setting for best results. May not be compatible for DS Phats.

 

Combat is a chore

               Graphics:  9.0
       The graphics are jaw-dropping for the DS, and the inclusion of cinema scenes from the console games really ups the bar. The load times are a little long, but it’s a worthy trade-off.

               Sound:  8.0
       Keeley Hawes is still doing Lara’s voice work, and she makes a wonderful countess. During gameplay there are no problems with her speech, but cutscenes suffer from poor sound quality. There is a distinct lack of background music during gameplay, a feature that I think adds immensely to the feeling of isolation. In this case, less is more.

               Control:  8.0
       Moving around the environment couldn’t be more natural. Combat, however, is where things start to fall apart. More buttons are used during combat than while clambering around ancient, eldritch ruins. It seems like the reverse should be true, and as a result, combat never feels natural.

                      Gameplay:  8.0
       I love this game. My only beef lies with the mindless gunplay and the final touch screen puzzle, which overwhelms you very quickly. It’s doable, but at considerable effort.

 

       Lastability:  5.0
       There's no reason to play it again after you find all the secrets, which doesn’t take long.

 

       Final:  9.0
       If you don’t have access to the next-gen console versions of Underworld, this DS game might be your best bet. Heck, even if you’ve played and beat the console versions, this DS game is worth your time. It is separate from its big brothers, but at the same time,  it retains the spirit of the series. Fans of the new Tomb Raider games or platformers in general should really check this out.      

[Same problems, different game.]

106

TalkBack / REVIEWS: Guitar Hero: On Tour Decades

« on: December 20, 2008, 02:31:37 AM »

Same problems, different game.
 http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/reviewArt.cfm?artid=17430

 When Guitar Hero hit the DS earlier in 2008, I was very excited despite its questionable track list. I popped it into my DS, and after just a few songs my hand had cramped up and I had to move  my entire body to a different position. A few songs later, I had to readjust again. You see, the DS Guitar Hero games utilize a special adapter called the “Guitar Grip”, which plugs into the GBA slot. It’s a largish device that wraps around the bottom of the system;  you literally strap your hand onto the accessory, which forces your fingers onto the four fret buttons. The DS is held book-like, and you strum by stroking the touch screen with either your stylus or an included pick-shaped stylus.    

Now, here’s why it doesn’t work: the grip is not “locked” into the GBA slot, so there’s nothing keeping it from just sliding out, which it eventually will unless you come up with some uncomfortable way of holding the grip. There is no way to keep your wrist in a neutral position, so muscle aches build up quickly. I found that holding the DS against my belly and rotating my elbow out to the side (thus keeping my wrist straight) was the only way to play for an extended period of time; unfortunately, this problem exists in its sequel as well.    

Once you do manage a comfortable guitar position, the game itself is pretty cool…in theory. The track list in the original On Tour was pretty much all over the place, with lots of tracks simply imported from Guitar Hero 3. Decades attempts to implement a unifying theme, that being “decades.” There are five lists: Modern, 2000s, 1990s, 1980s, and 1970s (isn’t Vicarious Visions aware that the modern period IS the 2000s?). So what you’re really playing is ten songs from the modern “period,” which, might I add, physically hurts to listen to and play. The very first song you play is “Dirty Little Secret.” After that, it’s “Crushcrushcrush.” By the time you hit “Can’t Stop,” the requisite Red Hot Chili Peppers song, you’ll start wondering if Decades is worthwhile. But once you hit “I Believe in a Thing Called Love,” it definitely starts to redeem itself. Still, the 1990s are not that memorable. The 80s are a little better, but it’s the 70s that really work. The developer seemed to know this, making the 1970s the game’s piece de resistance. The Edgar Winter Group’s “Free Ride” is a million times better than almost every song that you slog through to get to it, and just like the original On Tour, some of the songs are also found in Guitar Hero: World Tour.    

Vicarious Visions learned from the mistakes of the first game, improving the note progression in Decades to better facilitate the awkward Guitar Grip setup. They’ve also added something I wish the entire franchise would adopt:  when you beat the game on a difficulty setting other than Easy, you get all of the money and potential unlocks for both that difficulty and all the difficulties before it. This means that if you beat the game on Expert, you never have to play the single-player game again; you get all of the money for Easy, Medium, Hard, and Expert. To make up for this change, Vicarious Visions added another career mode: Bass/Rhythm. This makes for three career options—Lead Guitar, Bass/Rhythm, and Duel.  Duel mode is still a lot of fun, but once you start beating your opponent into submission you should just win and move on.   As it stands, you’re forced to play through the entire song.    

Another new feature essentially doubles your two-player pleasure: If you have On Tour but your buddy has Decades, there’s no need to worry, as both games will stream their songs to the other system.  I really appreciated this feature, and I hope it’s retained in DS versions to come.    

Decades’ graphics are vitually identical to the original game. There are a few new characters from Guitar Hero III and World Tour, but the character models continue to look low-res with repetitious animations. There are, however, more costume choices and a wealth of new guitars. The backgrounds are more detailed, but honestly, are you paying that much attention to them? You should be staring at the notes. Sound quality is questionable, but improved with headphones.    

It seems that the On Tour brand is here to stay. That said, this brand may not fit the DS all that well, given the ergonomic problems associated with its Guitar Grip peripheral (also of note is the fact that the upcoming Nintendo DSi eliminates the required GBA cartridge slot). Here’s the bottom line: while the console versions remain the definitive Guitar Hero experiences, portable players that are absolutely ga-ga for the franchise should give Decades a shot.

Pros:
       

It's Guitar Hero on the road!

 

Some really cool songs in this sequel

 

Track streaming and stacking the difficulty rewards are great additions

       Cons:
       

Guitar Grip still causes carpal tunnel syndrome

 

"Dirty Little Secret"? Really? The modern age is just sad

 

Throwing "Bass/Rhythm" in there offsets stacked rewards

               Graphics:  7.0
       I’m not a fan of the stilted character models that honestly don’t look a whole lot like their console counterparts. 2D animation may suit this kind of game better, especially given how great the character portraits look. But the note highway is nice-looking, big, and clean. I don’t care for the touchscreen layout, though; for lefties like me, the Star Power meter is obscured by my hand.

               Sound:  7.0
       Tinny in places. Headphones are a huge benefit, but they don’t completely hide the fact that these songs are very compressed.

               Control:  5.0
       Your hand will thank you when you stop playing. Strumming works, but not nearly as well as simply pressing a button, like on the console guitar controller. It’s too easy to “over-strum,” thus making the game think you’ve strummed two notes.

                      Gameplay:  8.0
       Once you get yourself used to the setup, the game is fun until your wrist begins throbbing. It really does bring the console experience to the DS…minus the comfort of the guitar controller, of course. Have I mentioned yet how ergonomically infeasible the Guitar Grip is?

 

       Lastability:  7.0
       Longer now that a third career option was added. However, let’s pretend you play through all three career modes on Expert the first time: You have to play “The Middle” three times, which is exactly three MORE times than you should have to. However, unlocking new guitars, songs, and costumes is pretty nice, despite the presence of the All-American Rejects.

 

       Final:  7.0
       The best Guitar Hero software in the world can’t save you if the hardware is injury-inducing. The additions in this package help offset the pain you will experience, but I can’t shake the feeling that Guitar Hero may not be a brand best suited for portable play. Decades’ tracklist is worse than the previous game, but the new additions make up for it to certain degree.      

[A more focused sequel that unfortunately focuses on the wrong elements.]

107

TalkBack / REVIEWS: Kung Fu Panda: Legendary Warriors

« on: December 09, 2008, 01:44:41 PM »

A more focused sequel that unfortunately focuses on the wrong elements.
 http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/reviewArt.cfm?artid=17352

 It seems like only yesterday I reviewed Kung-Fu Panda on the Wii. That game released at the same time the movie came out in theaters, and its video game sequel Legendary Warriors arrives to coincide with the DVD release. I didn’t care for Kung-Fu Panda back when I originally reviewed it; the game featured half-baked platforming and mindless combat that depended on waggling your Wii Remote. The graphics were bad and the sound was sometimes absent. Its only redeeming factor was its multiplayer mode, which mimicked Super Smash Bros. (pared down, of course). Kung-Fu Panda: Legendary Warriors once again screws up its single-player story mode, but thankfully expands upon its fairly fun multiplayer game.    

The single-player game involves the return of Tai Lung, who sends out his horde of followers to capture the Furious Five and steal their chi powers, thus making him the ultimate warrior. You choose from four available hero characters—Po, Tigress, Monkey, and Master Shifu—and head towards oblivion. There is two-player co-op, which I recommend because you don’t die as often. Each level is structured identically: you initially fight about a million bad guys, a minigame ensues, and then you fight the boss (who is often aided by more henchmen). The minigames rise and fall in complexity, but usually involve controlling your character during a freefall by tilting the Remote, wiggling the Remote and/or Nunchuk, or drawing symbols with the Wii Remote.    

The fighting engine is hampered with problems. First and foremost there is no targeting system. Here, while surrounded by enemies, you end up waggling the Remote and hoping for the best. Often your attacks connect with the ether, and your character is punished by being pummeled. Enemies do surround you, and while you can block and evade, the fighting is so treacherous that going on the offensive is only marginally more helpful. This is why it’s helpful to have a second player.    

The problems continue in the special attack department. Building up enough offensive hits builds your chi meter, and when full, you can hold C and flick the Nunchuk down to use your special attack. If you’re not properly aligned in front of an opponent, this attack will mostly hit thin air. Towards the end of the attack, you’ll be asked to draw a symbol with the Wii Remote very quickly. This works maybe 50% of the time. Success results in a more powerful attack, while failure results in your character tripping. After three successive successful chi attacks, you can unleash your ultimate attack (which also requires imaginary line-drawing) that, if successful, doles out some pretty hefty damage. Unfortunately, the baddies just keep coming to the point of utter exhaustion. However, the motion controls are surprisingly good aside from the line-drawing, relying on simple gestures that the Wii won’t accidentally mix up, like flicking both the Remote and the Nunchuk downward, flicking them apart, or flicking the Nunchuk upwards. You block with the B button, and evade with the control stick while blocking. Sadly, the lack of a targeting system (Z-button, anyone?) reduces the combat to mere guesswork.    

As the fights progress enemies also start using chi attacks, which you can counter by rapidly tapping the C button. A sort of chi-off ensues, during which you and your enemy draw symbols on the screen. Again, because this only works half the time, you will be attacked…about half the time! Boss fights are irritating in that bosses have lots of hit points and special attacks in addition to chi attacks (like a charge, or a weapon), so fighting them takes awhile. They also tend to call for backup, so you’ll just end up doing more of the same.    

The single-player mode is extremely repetitious and gets old fast. Its saving grace is that every time you complete a level you unlock a character, an area, or both for the multiplayer mode. And the multiplayer mode is just as much a Smash Bros. clone as it was in the original game, if not moreso. Stages are large and diverse, and the different characters, while sometimes lacking personality, have interesting movesets and different styles of play. The multiplayer mode might keep the young ones entertained for awhile, but older players will instantly replace the disk with Smash Bros. Brawl.    

The graphics are a mix of good and bad. The art direction is great; each boss looks like a deleted character from the film, and in general the character design mimics the look of the source material extremely well. On the other hand, the animations are repetitious, characters look blocky, there is no ambient lighting, particle effects are horrendous (though rare), and the environments are generally dull with some notable exceptions. The cutscenes that occur before each level look great, simplistically animated by traditional 2D means. The sound is reminiscent of the first game (mellow) and seems to fix the sound effect problems that plagued it. Enemies, however, only seem to have three or four lines of dialogue, so you’ll hear the same taunts over and over again. Happily, Jack Black reprises his role as Po, and narrates the cutscenes.    

Single-player levels are summarized by a letter grade based on your performance, and getting A+ grades eventually unlocks more content. Those of you blessed with both the Wii and DS versions of the game can link the two and unlock bonus multiplayer characters in the Wii game. Overall, , Kung-Fu Panda: Legendary Warriors is one you should leave on the shelf. Even the little ones will appreciate Brawl more than this, both as a single-player game and a party game.

Pros:
       

Parts of the combat are pretty cool

 

Multiplayer is fairly fun

 

DS connectivity is nice

       Cons:
       

Chi attacks are unreliable

 

No targeting in a 3D brawler = fail

 

Multiplayer still not as fun as Smash Bros.

               Graphics:  5.0
       I’m not asking for PS3-quality visuals here, but I would like to see some ambient effects and complex character models! I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the Wii is capable of so much more than this.

               Sound:  6.0
       Mellow background tunes don’t really add to the experience and fail to get the blood pumping, which is important in a brawler. The inclusion of Jack Black is great, though.

               Control:  6.0
       The heavy reliance on motion controls is both good and bad. The basic combat movements are well implemented, but the chi attacks are unreliable, and with no targeting the combat quickly descends into mindless flailing.

                      Gameplay:  5.0
       Mindlessly repetitive to the point of exhaustion. Bad guys, minigame, boss! Bad guys, minigame, boss! Ad nausea.

 

       Lastability:  6.0
       Unlocking new content will keep you playing, although asking me to go back through and do it all over again to get higher grades on every level is a laughable request. Multiplayer will get more playtime than the story mode.

 

       Final:  6.0
       Legendary Warriors is definitely different from its predecessor, yet still fails to be fun. You’d best avoid this one.      

[A licensed first-person shooter that’s not as bad as you might think, but could certainly be better overall.]

108

TalkBack / REVIEWS: Quantum of Solace

« on: November 28, 2008, 07:41:24 PM »

A licensed first-person shooter that’s not as bad as you might think, but could certainly be better overall.
 http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/reviewArt.cfm?artid=17262

 Every Nintendo gamer worth his or her salt has memories of Rareware’s excellent Goldeneye 007, an N64 game that quickly became the “go-to” party game in the mid-90’s. Goldeneye was awesome for its time, featuring a wide variety of maps, very simple ragdoll physics, a whole lot of weapons and semi-customizable deathmatches. Bond games have attempted to match the success of that N64 knockout ever since, but to no avail. We’re now in a new age of Bond featuring Daniel Craig, but no video game tie-in released with the excellent reboot Casino Royale. This year we get the sequel to that film, Quantum of Solace, and a video game from Activision to go along with it. When the Wii version arrived at my doorstep, I expected horror, but found that the game is not nearly as bad as one might think. In actuality, Quantum would be a perfectly respectable FPS were it not marred by some jarring technical problems.    

Quantum picks up where Casino Royale left off—Bond has shot Mr. White, the man responsible for killing the woman he loved (Vesper Lynd). The game begins as Bond is hauling Mr. White over to his car, when our hero is ambushed by a bunch of his enemy’s goons. The gameplay generally follows the plot of the film (with a lot more gunplay) but a significant portion of the game deals with events which occurred during Casino Royale, perhaps making up for the lack of a Royale-specific game. The game is certainly not canonical; several events in the game differ entirely from their film counterparts (the scene where Bond spies on Greene and his cohorts, for instance).    

Solace’s gameplay feels like a cross between Metroid Prime 3 and Call of Duty 4. Aiming is handled in the usual way for a Wii game, with moving the cursor to the edge of the screen moving Bond’s gaze. Combined with the Nunchuk’s control stick, you have an essentially MP3-calibre shooting mechanism. Waggling the Nunchuk reloads your gun, pressing various directions on the D-pad switches weapons (or grenades), and the minus button brings up your map. The map, however, has its flaws. Using the control stick to (hypothetically) see the map in better detail results in the map scrolling offscreen entirely, no matter what direction I pressed the stick. This makes the map effectively useless.    

Fortunately your objectives are constantly updated by voiceovers from MI6, and the game gives you hints from time to time to deal with new threats. One great new feature is the ability to use cover. Pressing A near virtually any large structure will make Bond hide behind it, usually shielding him from enemy fire but allowing the player to fire on visible enemy targets. It is not a perfect system; since running is also mapped to the A button, Bond will often duck behind cover while running, even when you don’t want him to. If Bond can, pressing A while behind cover will make him dash to nearby cover, which usually allows you to take out enemies on the other side of the room. Another neat feature is the ability to do stealth kills.  Creeping up behind an enemy and waving the Nunchuk when prompted to do so triggers a slow-motion minigame, during which you must aim at an icon and press A to successfully pull off the kill. Failure usually results in death, but you have plenty of time to hit the A button. This aiming minigame also extends to a few cutscenes.  The controls are very tight and impressive, aside from technical quirks.    

The game stumbles when it comes to framerate, however. These are not top-tier Wii graphics by any means, in fact feeling rushed at times. Fire effects are particularly bad, and there is a woeful discrepancy in graphical polish between areas. One level may look wonderful while the next looks unfinished. Ambient lighting effects are simply nonexistent, and environments are not destructible. Overall, these are mid-range PS2-calibre graphics, and we all know the Wii can do better. Despite the low-tech quality of the visuals, slowdown is fairly rampant. There are areas in which considerable framerate drops are caused by Bond simply walking through  with no other characters on-screen. These framerate issues really comes to the forefront when engaging a squad of enemies. While never as jarringly bad as, say, Perfect Dark on the N64, it’s certainly unimpressive.    

Multiplayer features split-screen deathmatch gameplay with variable settings like round times, winning number of kills, and an impressive number of maps. You can even pick from a wide range of character types, all of which feature different weapons. However, split-screen deathmatch has one gigantic fault: bizarrely, split-screen local games look much, much worse than online games. It’s not a case of framerate drops; it almost seems like local split-screen employs an entirely different, scaled-down graphics engine. This is a phenomenon you have to experience to really understand.  It’s safe to say that online multiplayer is the way to go.    

Online deathmatch is a lot fun. Like Halo 3 you have the option of vetoing a chosen map, but you’ve gotta be quick. The game supposedly supports up to 12 players online in one game, but the most I ever encountered at any one time was four (including me). The online play is passable, although Quantum of Solace doesn’t even try to match the sheer amount of multiplayer variety demonstrated by modern games like Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4. I daresay that the number of distinct game types fails to live up to Goldeneye 007, which is a shame.  Quantum of Solace offers some good times for online fanatics, , and the single-player game is fairly robust. However, the framerate stutters are very annoying, and the fact that local split-screen multiplayer exhibits completely horrendous graphics is cause for concern. Something like Metroid Prime 3 offers a better single-player experience (with far better visual appeal), and there are better online Wii games. Quantum of Solace is ultimately a passable shooter that, as a package, has been done better elsewhere.

Pros:
       

Offers a reasonably strong FPS experience on the Wii

 

Control scheme finds a nice balance between Corruption and Call of Duty 4

 

Online matches are surprisingly fun

       Cons:
       

Low-tech visuals made that much worse by annoying framerate problems

 

Split-screen multiplayer, while functional, is hideously ugly

 

Online options nowhere near as robust as that of any other modern console FPS

               Graphics:  5.0
       Overall the visuals are not great, especially when we know the Wii is capable of the wonderful visuals in Metroid Prime 3. The framerate problem is a real bear, and it’s annoying that some levels look good while others look horrible.

               Sound:  8.0
       The music is typically Bondesque, and most of the actors from the film reprise their roles here, including Daniel Craig and Dame Judy Dench.

               Control:  8.0
       Aside from my problems with the running/cover system, the controls are pretty tight. The map in my game was immobile.

                      Gameplay:  7.0
       It’s a standard FPS, with lots of running and even more gunning. There are some rusty spots, like spotting security cameras and deactivating them, but overall it’s fine, with solid pacing and exciting shootouts.

 

       Lastability:  6.0
       Not much reason to play again after you’ve beaten it (which doesn’t take long), although there are four difficulty settings. The online play will satiate players for awhile, but without a gamer score or the level-up systems of Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4 you might not stick around that long.

 

       Final:  6.0
       The many graphical glitches really end up kicking Quantum in the teeth. However, the online play is worth a try, and the control scheme is very good overall. FPS fans might give the game a shot, but everyone else can safely look elsewhere.      

[A sharp, enticing adventure puzzle game that unfortunately suffers from an unreliable and sluggish control scheme.]

109

TalkBack / REVIEWS: Exit DS

« on: November 26, 2008, 12:31:29 PM »

A sharp, enticing adventure puzzle game that unfortunately suffers from an unreliable and sluggish control scheme.
 http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/reviewArt.cfm?artid=17260

 I’ve been trumpeting for some time now that games like Patapon and Wario Land: Shake It - with their simplistic, yet wonderful aesthetics - are where graphics have to go on lesser-powered systems. You will never see the photorealism of, say, Call of Duty 4 on Wii, and you won’t get the powerful 3D engine of the PSP on a DS game. These are not bad things—they are entirely different platforms, and it pains me when developers try to jerry-rig a piece of hardware to display things it wasn’t meant to display. Thus I’m always really happy when stylish, more abstract-looking games arrive on handheld platforms. Exit DS is one of these games: extremely stylish and graphically inventive, taking full advantage of its unique aesthetic.    

The game concerns the heroic red-tie-wearing Mr. Esc, whose duty is to rescue civilians from life-or-death situations. Is there a building on fire? Mr. Esc is on the scene, leading survivors to safety. Exit DS plays out like a wonderfully simplified Lemmings game, with Mr. Esc rescuing people and utilizing their unique abilities to lead everyone to the titular exit. There are an impressive number of survivor “types,” including normal people, fat guys, kids, dogs, and injury victims. Everybody has a unique ability, and the player must think carefully and work out situations in specific orders to progress. At its core, Exit DS is a puzzle game, one that shows a lot of promise.    

It’s gameplay that matters most however, and in this area Exit DS suffers considerably. The entire game is based on the touchscreen. You tap Mr. Esc, then tap somewhere on the landscape to make him go there. You tap Mr. Esc, then slide the stylus up to make him leap or climb a wall. You tap Mr. Esc, then tap a ladder to make him climb it. The problem is that this results in an extremely slow rate of progression. Tapping Mr. Esc doesn’t always result in the proper action, and sometimes he doesn’t do anything at all. Those with older DS systems with scratched-up screens like me, will have varying results thanks to the “dead zones” that develop over time. Exit DS would have been better off using a traditional control scheme, perhaps using the touch screen to switch between characters once they are rescued. This would make for a much faster, smoother experience.    

Bear in mind that there IS an alternate button-based control scheme, but it’s a poor alternative. Pressing the X button brings up an-screen cursor, which you scroll around with the D-pad to click things instead of tapping them. In some cases this actually works better than the stylus controls, but it doesn’t speed the action up at all. Taito deserves some credit for including an alternate control scheme, but it still isn’t very useful.    

It’s a shame because the game looks stunningly gorgeous. The characters look like shadow puppets, and environments are wonderfully diverse. The music is catchy, and the puzzles themselves are surprisingly deep. If you get stuck, you can restart at any time. Some of the puzzles get a little complex so a restart means a long retry, but that’s a genre convention.    

Exit DS has some likeable aspects, but the tedious control scheme keeps it from greatness. There’s a worldwide ranking system via Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection on which you can compare your times and score for individual puzzles, but beyond that it’s not worthwhile. Exit DS is definitely worth checking out for its unique look, but the control scheme will wear thin quickly.

Pros:
       

Looks great

 

The puzzles are complex and fun

 

There's an alternative control scheme...

       Cons:
       

...that isn't great

 

Game's flow is hindered by both control schemes

 

Weak Wi-Fi offerings

               Graphics:  8.0
       Mr. Esc moves with grace, as do his followers. The art style is wonderful, and the character designs are very interesting. You’d be surprised how much variety you can get out of shadow puppets!

               Sound:  7.0
       The music doesn’t change up as much as you’d like, and it’s kind of annoying hearing “HELP!” from survivors you haven’t rescued yet. However, the music IS pretty cool—very upbeat and jazzy, which compliments the art design.

               Control:  6.0
       The touchscreen controls are a little sloppy, and while I like the button scheme more, it’s still too slow

                      Gameplay:  7.0
       The puzzles are great; you have to work things out and rescue people in the right order, give the right items to the right people, etc. If only the control scheme didn’t drag it down.

 

       Lastability:  5.0
       You might put some time into this one, but it’ll require patience. Exit DS is just too slow and the controls too frustrating. The ranking system is there, but it isn’t very useful. A level editor might have saved this game--too bad there isn't one present.

 

       Final:  6.0
       The poor controls are a shame, because Exit DS succeeds on all other fronts. It’s got a great look, good music, and interesting puzzles, but the controls fall short. And in this game, the control scheme is everything!      

[Not even Elijah Wood can rescue this game from its frustrating 3D platforming.]

110

TalkBack / REVIEWS: The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon

« on: November 20, 2008, 03:33:41 PM »

Not even Elijah Wood can rescue this game from its frustrating 3D platforming.
 http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/reviewArt.cfm?artid=17247

 I haven’t played Spyro since the glory days on the PS1, back when Insomniac was in charge and the series was well-respected. The series has since sunk lower and lower on the quality scale (from the reviews I’ve read over the years), but I was ready to give the little purple dragon another chance. Enter The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon! A quick Wikipedia search will reveal that The Legend of Spyro is a trilogy meant to be a re-boot of the series after Enter the Dragonfly and A Hero’s Tail did so poorly.    

I can’t speak from authority for the first two Legend games, but I can tell you that Dawn of the Dragon is Lord of the Rings with flying reptiles for hobbits and cat-people instead of elves. No, that’s not a good thing. Spyro and his enemy-turned-friend, Cynder, are out to stop the Dark Master from being summoned and enshrouding the world in darkness. Like Sauron of Tolkien’s trilogy, the Dark Master sits atop a volcano. He can also summon giant fire demons…er…Earth Golems…and he commands a large army of goblins and bugs. The dramatic music, fantasy landscape, and big-name voice cast only increase the similarities between Legend of Spyro and Lord of the Rings, especially since Elijah Wood provides the voice for our titular hero. Christina Ricci, who was good in Casper, The Addams Family, and not much else, voices Cynder. Wayne Brady (remember him?) lends his vocal chords to Sparx, a golden dragonfly whose only purpose is to be annoying and provide incredibly flat comic relief. Commissioner Gordon—I mean, Gary Oldman—is Ignitus, an ancient dragon and Spyro’s version of Obi-Wan. Mark Hamill is unrecognizable as the Dark Master himself.    

The game is divided roughly into two halves: Frustrating platforming and mind-numbing combat. Let’s go over the platforming first. Both characters are onscreen at once. Much like Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, the player can freely switch between them, and the NPC will be controlled by AI. Aside from elemental differences that I’ll go into later, playing as Spyro or Cynder makes no difference. However, they cannot get too far from each-other, as the dragons are tethered together by an energy rope. As you can imagine, the AI dragon often gets “stuck” during platforming segments, requiring you to switch between the two dragons to position them correctly, which leads to a lot of trial-and-error frustration. The dragons can double-jump, climb walls, swing from their energy tether to far-away areas, and fly. Except they can’t fly very well, and the level design is rarely built around the flight mechanic. And when the developers want you to do straight platforming, they force it. Inconvenient wind tunnels and your AI partner’s refusal to likewise take to the skies really limit the feeling of freedom that flight should instantly bring When flying is available, it’s fairly enjoyable, but it’s not encouraged as often as it could’ve been.    

Because success is a combination of effect button-mashing and blind luck, combat never manages to feel fun. Spyro and Cynder have access to their own unique sets of elemental special attacks. Spyro gets traditional stuff like Fire, Ice, and Electricity, while Cynder has more interesting attacks like Poison, Shadow, and Wind. These special attacks use MP and can be upgraded by collecting blue crystal shards. In case you’re wondering, red crystals replenish health, and green crystals give you MP Spamming your magic attacks is a good way to win fights, but your MP runs out fairly quickly. Instead, you have to rely on the B button to do most of the work in association with jumping (A) and grabbing (A+B). Because you are often swarmed by small enemies, it’s tough to really target any one creature, and combat quickly becomes an exercise in blind flailing. You can block attacks by tilting the Nunchuk up (yes, the whole thing) , which I found distracting. But hey, what about your buddy Sparx? You know, that golden dragonfly! Surely he provides a targeting system like Navi and Tatl do, right? NO! Even though he’s always on screen, his role is one of passivism.    

At least the game looks good, right? No, sorry, it strikes out there, too. I don't know about the PS3 or Xbox360 versions, but the Wii game looks unrefined. Character animations are stiff, character models have a certain blockiness about them, and cut-scenes are obviously rendered outside the game engine yet fail to impress. I was especially shocked that all of the cat-people in the game (that I encountered) are the exact same model, but with different color schemes. Even in the cut-scenes! Enemies are blandly designed and animate poorly. There are some areas where the world sprawls out before Spyro and Friends, and you say “whoa,” but then you remember that scenes like this were done far better in Twilight Princess, and if I remember correctly, that was a Wii launch game.      

This legend ultimately isn’t very legendary, stumbling in way too many places to get a good grade. You’re better off replaying Twilight Princess if you want something epic, or watching Lord of the Rings if you want something with Frodo Baggins in it!

Pros:
       

Good voicework with an all-star cast

 

Musical score is fitting and evolcative

       Cons:
       

Graphics are way behind the times

 

Control is finicky, especially during combat

 

Frustrating platforming, no thanks to lame-brained AI partner

               Graphics:  6.0
       Okay, things are colorful. That’s a plus. However, the textures are muddy and the character models are stiff and reused. There are no excuses for lazy graphical execution this far into the system’s lifespan.

               Sound:  8.0
       Elijah Wood returns as Frodo! The musical score is awesome.

               Control:  6.0
       Without a lock-on function, combat is literally a hit-and-miss affair. Platforming is messy and frustrating, and never feels natural.

                      Gameplay:  5.0
       The platforming is frustrating and the combat is mindless. That’s all she wrote!

 

       Lastability:  4.0
       You’ll get tired of the gameplay long before you find and kill all the “Elite Enemies,” find all of Spyro and Cynder’s armor, and discover all the HP/MP boosts.

 

       Final:  5.0
       The Legend of Spryo: Dawn of the Dragon fails to live up to its Insomniac roots in almost every way. When  a decade-old PS1 game is so much better than its descendant, there’s something missing. There are certainly better choices out there.      

[It’s Pokémon…in 3D…in space!]

111

TalkBack / REVIEWS: Spectrobes: Beyond The Portals

« on: November 12, 2008, 08:10:17 PM »

It’s Pokémon…in 3D…in space!
 http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/reviewArt.cfm?artid=17179

 Spectrobes: Beyond the Portals is like a modern cell phone. It tries to do way too many things at once, and it’s never sure what the primary function is. Spectrobes tries to be a fetch-quester, a Pokémon clone, a Tamagotchi, an arena battle game, and a 3rd-person shooter, with a fossil excavation mini-game thrown in for variety. Spectrobes never manages to nail down any of the genres it attempts to supplant, and it ends up feeling like an unfocused mess.    

Beyond the Portals is a sequel to the original Spectrobes, a game I never played. According to the brief recap at the beginning of this game, our heroes, Rallen and Jeena, successfully fought back the Krawl, a group of alien overtakers, and saved the galaxy. Several months later, the Krawl return, using mysterious portals to travel to Rallen and Jeena’s galaxy and kidnapping a friend from the first game, Aldous. The Krawl also manage to steal all of Rallen’s equipment in the process, meaning that our hero must start from scratch.    

This dooms you to wander the galaxy in search of people to talk to, who tell you to go talk to other people, often in the area you just left. Because there’s no GTA-like radar, it’s very easy to get lost in areas you’re unfamiliar with, like Rallen’s home base. Your first couple hours of gameplay will be spent navigating a very thinly-veiled tutorial. The tasks therein are tedious, to say the least. At one point, after fighting a few bad guys and coming to an area I could not yet move past, I was called back to my ship. I wandered back to my ship, and Jeena told me to go right back to the area I was just in to dig up certain fossils, then come back to her to awaken them, then go back yet again to an area I’d already been three times already. Believe it or not, that instance was not the worst offender.    

While in the field, Rallen is equipped with a sword and a laser gun that tracks targets that you lock onto. However, fighting in the field is a useless affair, because all field creatures originate from a large tornado-like structure that can only be destroyed with Spectrobe battles. So it’s better to just run toward the tornado, kill the inhabitants, and stop the field creatures from appearing in the first place. Spectrobes are Pokémon. Like Digimon or Neopets, they look different and have some different elemental properties, but let’s be honest, here: they’re Pokémon. They level up, evolve, and eat minerals to improve their stats. The big difference is that you actually control the Spectrobes during battle. Two Spectrobes go in at a time and face two opponents. You can switch between your two Spectrobes whenever you want and use a lunge or energy attack. The two can team up to unleash a super attack when their power meter has gotten high enough. After the battle is won, you earn experience and pick up any items or money the enemy has dropped.    

Spectrobes level up by consuming a whole lot of minerals in an "Incubator", which is where the Tamagotchi gameplay comes in. When you want to learn about your Spectrobes or level them up, go back to your ship and put up to eight lil’ cuties in a virtual room. Feed them minerals you’ve found in the field (more on that later) until they sparkle, at which point they will evolve with the tap of an icon. Evolving has nothing to do with leveling up, although I can only assume that leveling up your Spectrobe through battle before evolving it in the Incubator has an effect on its stats. On the one hand, allowing you to basically evolve your Spectrobes at your convenience is a nice change of pace from the level grinding of Pokémon games. On the other hand, the Incubator is just another needless step in a process that is already in need of serious streamlining.    

You find Spectrobes (and minerals) by digging for them in a method reminiscent of http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/reviewArt.cfm?artid=17014">Dinosaur King. After clearing an area of critters, you can use the radar, which will show you where stuff is hidden underground. Tap that area, and it’s off to the excavation mini-game! You basically tap the screen until you uncover something, then tap around the object (don’t try to "erase" the rock around it like Dinosaur King—you’ll fail) to uncover it… very slowly. You can haul it from the substrate when you’ve cleared 90% of the dirt ‘n’ grime away, but going for the full 100% will often net you a better prize and more experience. I’m still not sure what experience does for your excavating skills.    

After you’ve unearthed a Spectrobe, it’s off to the Awakening machine, my least favorite part of the entire experience. You choose which fossil you want to awaken, then talk, whistle, or yell into the microphone for three full seconds while keeping your voice volume at such a level that the pick-up bar stays within a narrow band. After three seconds of this, your Spectrobe will awaken, and you can name it. There should be another option. Merely blowing into the microphone will work too, but your Spectrobe will not come out at as high a level as it would were you, say, singing “Sweet Home Alabama” into the mic (something I did) (in my kitchen) (while my wife wasn’t home).  Parents of small children are going to hate this game. There should be another, less noisy, method.    

Disney has its own online thing. This isn’t Nintendo Wi-Fi, it’s "D-Gamer", but it amounts to the same thing. Online battles are pretty standard, although there’s an online ranking system in place, too. Spectrobes is also a card game, and you can buy and somehow upload the card data onto the game to unlock more Spectrobes.  The game comes with four cards, but at no point did the two-hour tutorial tell me how to upload the card data. Honestly, that’s one more fetch-quest I could do without anyway.

Pros:
       

Graphics fairly impressive

 

Online battles and ranking

       Cons:
       

Never-ending tutorial

 

No shortage of fetch-questing

 

Battles, though different from Pokemon, not nearly as deep or engaging

 

Awakening fossils is the most horrible DS process I've ever experienced

               Graphics:  7.0
       Everything is 3D! That makes it good, right? No, it doesn’t, not when the character designs are clichéd and boring. Only about a third of the Spectrobes that I saw look cool. Virtually none of the human character portraits look anything less than silly.

               Sound:  5.0
       Boring music? Check. Forgot to give all the Spectrobes their own roars? Check.

               Control:  8.0
       There’s nothing inherently wrong with the control scheme. It’s just that so many things could be taken out, for the betterment of the game. There are too many things to do, too many controls to learn.

                      Gameplay:  5.0
       The game lacks focus and suffers for it.

 

       Lastability:  6.0
       You can dig up all the Spectrobes you want and evolve ‘em and battle other people. But you have to put up with a lot of crap to do so.

 

       Final:  6.0
       Like I so often say, there are better choices out there. Spectrobes fails because it can’t decide what it’s trying to be.      

112

TalkBack / The Neo-Geo Problem

« on: November 11, 2008, 07:54:09 AM »

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/blogArt.cfm?artid=17167

  My TV is too good for the Wii. I have no idea what the specs are, but here's a brief rundown: It's a 32" LCD (Olevia) with two component intputs, two composite inputs, two S-Video inputs, and one HDMI input. I can plug all my systems into it, and use a switcher to play my older systems. However, two GameCube games (Mega Man Anniversary Collection and Mega Man X Collection) do not show up on the screen. The sound is there, but the screen is black. This problem is annoying, but not nearly as persistant as in Virtual Console Neo-Geo games. This is a problem Nintendo has to address.    

When I boot up the Mega Man collections, I can see the title screens, I can see the game select screens, I can see the loading screens. When the game itself (say, Mega Man 4) starts playing, the screen goes dark, and only sound is available.    

Neo-Geo games are much the same. Upon starting up one of Neo-Geo VC games (say, King of the Monsters), sound is present, but visuals are not. The Neo-Geo problem can be fixed, however. Note that I use component cables for my Wii--why wouldn't I? As it turns out, switching my component cables out for composite cables solves the problem. Neo-Geo graphics simply can't...I don't know...distribute properly through three cables instead of one. It's an odd problem, considering that this happens to exactly NONE of my other VC games, including NES games, which I imagine were built using more primitive software.    

At any rate, cable-switching does not make the problem go away with the Mega Man games. If I have to borrow my friend's GameCube to play them, I suppose that's a price I'm willing to pay, as said GC is readily available. However, the Neo-Geo problem is incredibly annoying. Users with LCD TV's and component cables should not be made to switch their settup around for one brand of games. Is this a case of poor emulation? Would a simple patch (in the form of a system update) remedy the problem? As far as I know, Nintendo has not commented on the problem, so I doubt they recognize it as one.    

However, a quick Google search will bring up other users with similar problems. Some recommend a graphical "soft boot" with the Wii Remote & Nunchuk, but that does me no good. There are lots of Neo-Geo games I'd love to get, but this annoying cable problem is keeping me from doing so.    

What's up, Nintendo? Why can't I play King of the Monsters with my component cables?

113

Nintendo Gaming / Please help with Mega Man Anniversary Collection

« on: November 10, 2008, 08:56:33 PM »

So I don't think this game works on the Wii. I have the same problems with the Mega Man X Collection:

1) Pop the game in the Wii, it starts up just fine. I can see all the menu screens. I can select a game.

2) The game itself (all the Anniversary games, most of the MMX games) give me the same black screen that Neo-Geo VC games give me. I can HEAR the game, but I can't see it.

3) Switching to composite, however, does not help this time.

Is there a solution to my woes? Does anybody else have this problem? Is it my TV? I love my TV.

[A very basic RPG with grid-based combat and a boring, clichéd storyline.]

114

TalkBack / REVIEWS: Naruto: Path of the Ninja 2

« on: October 29, 2008, 07:16:11 AM »

A very basic RPG with grid-based combat and a boring, clichéd storyline.
 http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/reviewArt.cfm?artid=17096

 Some of you may remember that I reviewed Naruto: Ninja Destiny earlier this year and was impressed by it. Ninja Destiny is a fighting game, and while Naruto: Path of the Ninja 2 is a different genre – it’s very basic RPG - it’s not nearly as good, considering its genre and platform, as Ninja Destiny.  I don’t have a lot of experience with Naruto games or the series itself, but I can tell you that this probably isn’t a game you’ll like very much.    

Path of the Ninja 2 begins with some bad guys trying to awaken a giant slumbering Beast Demon, setting in motion a series of events that eventually lead to a girl’s grandpa dying. The girl runs to the Hidden Leaf Village, where Naruto ‘n’ Friends live, to ask for their help. Before you know it, the whole lot of Naruto’s pals have signed on to the cause of stopping the Beast Demon and getting the bad guys. In order to stop the giant catfish, Naruto & Co. must find five mystical mirrors to seal the Beast Demon back in…um…demon land. Yes, it’s that clichéd. Boy…I wonder if they’ll have to…*gasp*…fight the Beast Demon? The mind boggles.    

Overworld exploration is extremely basic. You wander around a bird’s-eye view landscape finding treasure chests containing items and talking to NPCs. Random battles occur in the field with some frequency, and new frontiers are reached by finding and equipping different “animal companions.” These act as summons in battle, and they can all level up. Battles themselves are the game’s one attempt at innovation (although the Mega Man: Battle Network series have been doing them the same way for the better part of a decade). Combat is still turn-based, but your party members can move around on the battlefield. The basic premise is that the amount damage that you can deal or receive is based on your distance from the enemy.  Being closer will let you hit harder while taking more damage, while being further away results in less damage to both you and your opponents.  Some enemies (especially bosses) use attacks that take up multiple squares on the grid, so strategic placement of your troops becomes important to success. You can have three party members on the field at any one time, but you can switch one character out for another at any time without losing a turn. This means that characters can turn, move, switch, and attack in one turn    

Path of Ninja 2 has simply too many characters. After the first half-hour of gameplay you’ll have six party members, and the number just goes up from there. It becomes challenging to keep all of your party members at or around the same experience level, and you’ll spend more time making sure Bob and Ted are fighting instead of Joe and Steve (note: not the real character names). Your command list is also ridiculously long—there are almost too many things you can do in any given turn, and the experience becomes bogged down in tedium.    

The game’s single shining light is its online battle mode. You can take your team online via the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection and fight other player’s teams in online grid-based fights. It’s humbling, but also fun - sort of like Pokemon without the universal brand recognition - and it’s interesting to see other player’s movement strategies and how they’ve equipped their characters. If nothing else, it gives you some ideas for tackling the single-player game.    

Despite the appealing online component, I can’t recommend Path of the Ninja 2 to anyone mildly interested in Naruto or portable RPG’s, as there are better examples of both on the DS.

Pros:
       

Online battles are relatively fun

       Cons:
       

Sprite-based graphics aren't impressive

 

Story is clichéd and linear

 

Way too many combat options, so combat becomes overly drawn-out

               Graphics:  6.0
       Most portable RPGs doing 3D stuff now and it works really well. I think Naruto must’ve missed that memo, because static sprite-based combat just isn’t impressive anymore.

               Sound:  5.0
       If there’s a soundtrack, it’s not memorable. There’s some limited voicework during battles, but it does nothing to drum up excitement.

               Control:  8.0
       There’s nothing terribly wrong with the controls, but there are too many options during combat which leads to overly long fights. But really, it boils down to using the D-pad and pressing the face buttons.

                      Gameplay:  5.0
       Tedium, thy name is Naruto! Pokemon does the top-down, sprite-based RPG format much better.

 

       Lastability:  6.0
       You will wring more enjoyment out of the online battles than the solo game. Otherwise, there’s not a lot here.

 

       Final:  6.0
       I can name five other DS RPGs off the top of my head that would be more worth your money.      

115

General Gaming / Penny Arcade Adventures hit the PSN

« on: October 28, 2008, 04:06:45 PM »

Finally, I can play Episode 1, and hopefully Episode 2, soon!

Best thing, though? It supports trophies.

116

TalkBack / REVIEWS: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia

« on: October 27, 2008, 01:02:45 AM »

Talkback is misbehaving, so here's the thread for the review!

[Everything you ever wanted to know about the Wii but were afraid to ask.]

117

TalkBack / REVIEWS: Wii for Dummies

« on: October 19, 2008, 11:21:12 PM »

Everything you ever wanted to know about the Wii but were afraid to ask.
 http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/reviewArt.cfm?artid=17017

 To my surprise, I was greeted one afternoon by a paperback book of considerable heft on my doorstep. Initially believing it to be the Pachyrhinosaurus monograph I had ordered, I tore open the package with considerable glee, only to find the unexpected content within: Kyle Orland’s Wii for Dummies. Its yellow and black cover instantly recognizable, I briefly recollected my younger days with DOS for Dummies back when people still used DOS. At any rate, after getting high on that new-book smell, I began leafing through the tome, eager to find some obscure morsel about my favorite motion-controlled console.    

To be perfectly honest, if you’re a regular reader of this site, you probably don’t need to read Wii for Dummies, but Orland immediately declares that the book is not for you, anyway. Instead, it’s for first-time Wii users, or people who don’t yet have a Wii but are considering purchasing one. I would also add that the book is more specifically for people who never, or almost never, play video games. Weighing in at a robust 314 pages, Wii for Dummies covers every aspect of the console you could possibly need;everything from finding a system, to opening the box, to wandering around the Internet Channel, to what Virtual Console games you might like.    

The usual Dummies series trademarks are here, including Tip, Warning, and Technical Stuff icons, and “The Fifth Wave” comics that introduce each chapter. All of the figures and photographs, most of which are screen captures, are crisp and easy to decipher.    

What impressed me most about the book were the “little thing” chapters. These are things gamers like me wouldn’t normally look at, but I found myself paying the most attention to them.  Orland dedicates a section to peripherals, both first-party and third. He talks about each sport on Wii Fit and how to succeed at each (there are tennis and boxing subtleties I wasn’t aware of). He also discusses how BMI isn’t that great of an indicator of health, and goes on to outline various Wii games for the non-gamer, the party gamer, and the casual gamer.    

Everything you could possibly want to know about the Wii is in this book. What’s more, it’s an entertaining read, and not some boring technical manual. Kyle Orland is a good writer and throws in a few puns now and then. And while I didn’t learn too much new information, that’s not to say a lot of people won’t: Wii for Dummies is an excellent book for the new Wii owner, or those looking to buy a Wii. In fact, I think my father-in-law would love this book, as he is considering the purchase himself.

Pros:
       

Great intro for the system

 

The coverage of peripherals is great and much appreciated

 

Wii Sports tips will help your game

       Cons:
       

Experienced gamers need not apply

 

Recommended games section leaves out some obvious choices (Metroid Prime 3, for one)

               Appearance:   .0
       N/A

               Comfort:   .0
       N/A

               Quality:  9.0
       Can't go wrong if you're a first-timer, and while that's the book's ultimate purpose, I wish there was a little more meat for those who already own a Wii.

                      Value:  9.0
       There's nothing you won't find here regarding the little white box, so it makes an excellent reference. And at 300+ pages, virtually every question is answered.

 

       Construction:   .0
       N/A

 

       Final:  9.0
       Do you know somebody who's on the fence about the Wii, or perhaps somebody who just bought one but hasn't played video games since Pitfall? This book will answer all their questions and more.      

[It's like they know me personally.]

118

TalkBack / REVIEWS: Dinosaur King

« on: October 19, 2008, 03:08:21 PM »

It's like they know me personally.
 http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/reviewArt.cfm?artid=17014

 There are two things you should know about me before delving into this review. First, I’m a dedicated amateur paleontologist. I don’t go on field digs or even spend all that much time in my city’s museum (the Alaska Museum of Natural History), where I am voluntarily employed as their paleo consultant. However, I do write about and draw dinosaurs, I correspond with people in the field, I formulate hypotheses, I attend conferences, and I stay current with research. My technical paper library is surprisingly robust, given my meager access to journals in Alaska. Not to brag, but I probably know more about prehistoric reptiles than the entire NWR staff. Second, and perhaps more importantly, I caught all 496 (or so) Pokémon in Pearl. This took months. There were days I didn’t go to sleep until 3 a.m., knowing full well I had to get up early the next morning for work, just to snag that elusive Tauros or Relicanth.    

So I imagine Sega’s executives had a camera in my house at some point. “We’ve got this one guy in Alaska who loves Pokémon and dinosaurs,” says the executive. “We can totally make a game for this guy. But we can’t just put in popular dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops. That won’t satiate his cultivated appetite. We’ll need to throw in more obscure taxa, like Talarurus and Opisthocoelicaudia. And we need to give them all elemental types.”   Well, I see your ploy, Sega! You think some silly sprite-based Pokémonesque gameplay will capture my interest, eh? Think again! Wait—are those dinosaurs rendered in 3D? Are they…*gulp*…scientifically accurate to a degree unseen even in most modern Discovery Channel and History Channel shows? Is that bony crest I see on Irritator challengeri’s head? Am I correct in assuming that Einiosaurus has a downturned nasal horn? Heaven? Is that you?    

This is clearly the video game I’ve been waiting my entire life for. But does it hold up to the rigors of the formal review process? Yes! With a few caveats, Dinosaur King is a wonderful Pokémon imitation. Allow me to explain.    

In the near future, dinosaurs can be brought back to life with a computerized device called the “DinoShot.” Of course, the first thing you’d do upon learning of this amazing discovery would be to use dinosaurs to take over the world. The D-Team (the good guys) are ransacked by Team Rocket - I mean, the Alpha Gang - during the game’s introduction. The Alpha Gang steals a bunch of DinoShots and begin using the dinosaurs contained within to force society to bend to their will. Two boys, Max and Rex, take some DinoShots and go after the villains themselves, and in doing so are also roped into a bunch of sidequests along the way.    

You start the game as either Max or Rex, which really means you start with either Carnotaurus or Triceratops. As you progress through each distinct level, you dig up dinosaur fossils with the help of a radar and drill. This is very enjoyable, since aside from the sonar and the drilling (which are pedestrian, button-pressing affairs), you get to clean the fossil yourself with the stylus and mic! You pick away at the bedrock, trying to free as much of the underlying fossil as possible before your chipping tool breaks, and blow into the mic to clear dust off the fossil. It’s awesome, but too often the fossil image doesn’t match the dinosaur you are given. Imagine my surprise when, after uncovering what appeared to be a generic Coelurosaur skeleton, I was given an Iguanadon as my reward. While it’s probably too much to ask to provide a specific skeletal image for each particular animal, it’s not a stretch to desire generalized skeletons based on the particular class the dinosaur belongs to. You know, you could have skeletons for theropods, ornithopods, stegosaurs, ankylosaurs, ceratopsians, pachycephalosaurs, and sauropods. That’s seven different skeleton images—that’s not too bad, right?    

The basic overworld gameplay is virtually identical to Pokémon. You wander around a large, sprite-based environment, entering random battles and finding key items. Quests almost always involve finding somebody’s lost item and giving it back to them. In between, you can hit the ground with radar and dig up fossils. You can also dig up valuable items to sell at shops. But what about the fighting engine? Is it also just like Pokémon? Surprisingly, it’s not.    

Pokémon battles have always had an underlying theme of rock-paper-scissors; you know, grass beats water beats fire, etc. Dinosaur King wears its rock-paper-scissors backbone on its sleeve. Your options for a battle are literally rock, paper, or scissors. The trick is that each move has a specific attack behind it. Winning the round allows you to attack, a tie results in both dinosaurs receiving damage, and a loss results in you taking damage. Each dinosaur favors a particular move, and after leveling up enough, can equip that move with an elemental attack. Just like in Pokémon, elemental attacks mean something. In addition, as a dinosaur levels up, it generates “Move Cards,” attacks that can be swapped between dinosaurs. Imagine that your Pokémon party’s moveset can be customized at any time. Instead of letting Pikachu use Slam, give that move to Poliwrath. The only caveat is that elemental attacks can only be used by dinosaurs of a matching elemental type.    

This may seem great, but it has one major flaw.  Because the system is based on ro-sham-bo, you can’t use any attack at any time. Very often, your opponent will give you a hint as to what move he’s going to make before he makes it, giving you the opportunity (this is the key to success) to pick a move that will beat his. Sometimes it’s blatantly obvious: “I will try a Critical Move” (favored move). If their Critical Move is rock, then you just pick paper and win. Thus battles always have a certain predictability to them, which is a major drawback. Strategy isn’t strategy when it’s forced, and a Level 2 Neovenator can easily beat a Level 9 Brachyceratops if he hits the right moves. The focus of fights quickly shifts from moveset strategy to figuring out what your opponent is going to do. Later battles get into a sort of “I know you know what I know” mindset, with baddies spouting lines like “I assume you’re going to try and beat me if I use a Critical Move.” It becomes increasingly important to remember what attack you just used, and to keep an eye on both your and your opponent’s moveset. This isn’t a terrible system—it works just fine, but it’s so completely different from what Pokémon offers that it takes some getting used to.    

It is annoying when enemies do NOT give you hints as to what their next attack will be. After going through tons of random battles during which the bad guy spills the beans, it’s jarring and frustrating to fight a boss who gives up NO information, which results not in a battle of wits, but pure chance. Boss fights are won by grinding, pure and simple. Get your team to a significantly higher level than their team, equip some elemental attacks, and pray that your (elemental) move will beat their move, and that your elemental attack is effective against their type. Bosses can be irritating, to say the least.    

The dinosaurs look great. Each one has a different character model; even Eustreptospondylous looks significantly different than Allosaurus, which is a miracle considering the hardware this game is running on. Animations are smooth and believable, and just over-the-top enough to be entertaining. The only area of complaint is that almost all of the dinosaurs have the same animations. That is, Fukisaurus and Carnotaurus do the exact same things, even though one is an obligate quadruped while the other is a facultative biped. But the animations themselves are great—there are few things more entertaining than seeing Dacentrurus curl into a spinning ball of spiky death and flinging himself toward his opponent.    

And now, the technical jargon.   Feel free to skip ahead.  No, seriously, if you aren’t concerned with the technical accuracy of the dinosaur content in Dinosaur King, feel free to skip ahead.  Consider yourself warned.    

For all it gets right, Dinosaur King gets a few simple things very wrong about dinosaurs. First, it’s interesting to note that the Dinosaur Encyclopedia (basically your Pokédex) places each dinosaur in phylogenetic context, showing you how it’s related to every other dinosaur. However, you can’t freely move the phylogeny around—you can only move from the starting point to where that dinosaur ends up. You aren’t really allowed to see, for example, how many steps Einiosaurus is from Stegosaurus. The tree itself has many pretty awful inaccuracies. In the game, Therizinosauroidae, Maniraptora, and Coelurosauria is presented as an unresolved trichotomy. In reality, the Therizionsauroidae (which might not be a valid clade) is part of the Maniraptora, which itself is part of a larger Coelurosauria. The game also makes no real separation between Allosauridae and Megalosauridae. Megalosaurs, for one thing, might not even be tetanurines! For another thing, “Megalosauridae” is most likely a wastebasket group with no real taxonomic value. Spinosaurs and torvosaurs have been united recently in a potentially monophyletic “Spinosauroidea,” but better torvosaur fossils, as well as ancestral spinosaurs, are needed before that idea really catches on. Furthermore, the game has some weird ideas about ceratopsians. Brachyceratops is presented as a distinct taxon, but in reality it’s probably just a juvenile centrosaurine. Its taxonomy cannot be nailed down any more than that because of the poor fossil record for subadult ceratopsids. Another oddity is the presence of Eucentrosaurus, a taxon once considered distinct from Centrosaurus, but was quickly reassigned as a separate species within the latter genus (C. brinkmani, I believe).  OK, I’m done.    

For these faults, however, it’s interesting to see so many obscure dinosaurs represented graphically—and represented well—and I really thank the developers for going that extra mile. It’s not every day that you see dinosaurs like Rajasaurus and Baryonyx in a video game. Even better, your contact at the D-Lab is named Minmi!*    

Dinosaur King is a good game. If you can get past the requisite level grinding and somewhat strategy-free nature of the battle system, you’ll find a decent Pokémon-type title with real dinosaurs and entertaining 3D battles. And of course, there are Wi-Fi Connection battles and, interestingly, item-trading options. I’m diving into this game with the same zeal I did for Pokémon Pearl. Any love lost in boss fights is reclaimed by the awesome dinosaur models. If you like dinosaurs and Pokémon, you can’t go wrong here.    

*Minmi is named after Minmi paravertebra, a small Australian ankylosaur that held the record for shortest dinosaur genus name until 2004, when Mei, a small Chinese troodontid, was named.

Pros:
       

Scientifically accurate dinosaurs!

 

Unique battle system

 

Online play

       Cons:
       

Battles have can be either too easy or too frustrating because of the rock-paper-scissors aspect

 

Some obvious accuracy issues

 

Grind, baby, grind!

               Graphics:  8.0
       The overworld isn’t done as well as it was in Pokémon Pearl (3D buildings FTW), but the 3D dinosaurs and well-executed battle animations certainly outdo the immobile sprites of Pocket Monsters.

               Sound:  7.0
       You’d be surprised how similar certain themes are to Pokémon. For example, the D-Lab tune seems to be an only minor reworking of the Pokémon Center music. The battle themes are great—each level has distinct music, and it’s catchy and pumps you up.

               Control:  8.0
       You can use the Touch Screen for menu navigation and battles. Otherwise it’s the D-pad and the face buttons. Mapping radar to the R button and drilling to the L button is very intuitive.

                      Gameplay:  7.0
       There are some hiccups with the basic combat system, and there are a few too many quests (townspeople are lazy), but overall it’s a Pokémon clone with a divergent way of presenting fights.

 

       Lastability:  8.0
       It’ll take you a long time to find all the dinosaurs (there are even some “codes” to get bonus saurians), and there are seven continents to explore, so Dinosaur King will last you awhile—especially with all the grinding you’ll have to do.

 

       Final:  8.0
       Dinosaurs are awesome, and so is Pokémon. Like I said before, it’s like Sega read my mind.      

[Not to be confused with Line Walker 2: The Man in Black Returns.]

119

TalkBack / REVIEWS: Line Rider 2: Unbound

« on: October 09, 2008, 09:13:42 AM »

Not to be confused with Line Walker 2: The Man in Black Returns.
 http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/reviewArt.cfm?artid=16947

 Let's do an experiment together. Take $30 out of your wallet, and look at it. Really look at it. Whether it’s your job,  allowance, or finding it on the street somewhere, you earned that money. Now, think of all the things you could do with it. You could go to Chili's and get a great steak dinner with all the fixin's. You could take your significant other out to a movie and still afford popcorn. If you scrounged around for a little bit extra, you could go buy the super-special edition of Iron Man--the one with the mini-bust of Tony Stark's metallic persona. If you continued to save your dough, you could afford Wario Land: Shake It!.  Or you could buy Line Rider 2: Unbound, by far the worst move of all of these.    

The main problem is this: Line Rider is a free online Flash game that you can play on the internets until the cows come home. Line Rider 2 is a DS game that costs actual money. The gameplay differences are minimal, making this a hard purchase to recommend.    

For the uninitiated, Line Rider is a very simple game in which you draw a line for the little character to ride a sled on. The trick here is to get your character from point A to point B without falling off the track. Different-colored lines have different properties, like an accelator line, a slowdown line, a line that falls out from under you, etc. There is also physics simulation, so you have to pay attention to things like gravity and slope angle.    

Line Rider 2 expands the original game's create-a-track mode to include a puzzle mode, and the ability to create and share puzzles and tracks over Nintendo’s Wi-Fi Connection. Unfortunately, you can't share your tracks until you register a new account at the Line Rider website. This is disappointing.  Imagine if Mario Kart Wii had a track editor, but you couldn’t share your tracks or play other people’s tracks until you registered at the Mario Kart website. The very idea that a game's content does not become fully available until you increase its website's traffic is hard to swallow.    

I was still able to download tracks without registering, but for some reason I was unable to actually play them. Whether this problem is linked to me refusing to register at a website I'll never visit again, I'll never know. The instruction booklet doesn't explain how to play a track you've downloaded, and there certainly isn't a menu option to "play downloaded tracks." Maybe it shows up once you register! Again, I have no idea.    

The game's main draw is the "freestyle" mode of creating your own tracks and puzzles. This is a tedious and overly-complicated process. Drawing lines with the stylus is fun, but you have to constantly tweak your designs with the menu items. Each category of drawing tools has several sub-categories, so just finding the right tool is a chore. And if you screw up, you have to go back and select the eraser, erase, and then navigate back to whatever tool you were drawing with, and...it gets old fast.    

Story Mode is similar drudgery. The idea is to fill in blank spaces between the lines to get your character from start to finish. Easy, right? Well, no. The first three tracks are ridiculously easy, but the rest are insanely frustrating. In addition to getting to the finish line, you also have to collect yellow and red orbs. These orbs are usually placed in very difficult-to-reach places. Even the first puzzle involving orbs will have you pulling your hair out. After collecting a certain number of orbs, you get to watch a prerendered cutscene of two sledding characters trying to outdo each-other. They remind me of Roadrunner cartoons and they're kind of funny, but they're not worth the effort.    

Line Rider 2’s graphics are unimpressive to say the least; I've seen better-looking Flash games. Some of the musical tracks are catchy, but it's not enough to save the experience.  Just bear in mind that the internet game is free, folks.

Pros:
       

Online course sharing

 

Involves semi-realistic physics

       Cons:
       

Can't do anything online until you register at the website

 

Terrible graphics

 

Customizing courses is tedious

 

Online game is free

               Graphics:  4.0
       "Minimalist" is an overly-nice way of saying they're bad. The prerendered cutscenes are surprisingly nice, though. If only the character models weren't so hideous.

               Sound:  6.0
       The game's single highlight, but it's still nothing too impressive.

               Control:  5.0
       Stylus drawing is all well and good, but the track editor features too many tools to be accessible.

                      Gameplay:  2.0
       Frustrating and tedious, especially Story Mode.

 

       Lastability:  4.0
       It probably increases when you register at the website, but even then, do you want to spend all your time drawing lines for a guy to ride? Story Mode is the only real single-player option here. The rest of your time will be spent drawing courses for others to play, which thankfully is free online.

 

       Final:  3.0
       It's no Homie Rollerz, but Line Rider 2 just doesn't do a whole lot right. There's such a thing as staying too close to the source material, and when you wonder why the exact same game is available online - free of charge - you’ll begin to question the value of this DS game.      

120

TalkBack / Wario Land and Azhdarchid Pterosaurs

« on: October 05, 2008, 11:46:28 AM »

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/blogArt.cfm?artid=16869

  Azhdarchids are a group of pterosaurs that rose to dominance during the Late Cretaceous period. They alone were the rulers of skies once flooded with the membranous wings of vast swaths of other pterosaurs. But azhdarchids were special: they arose during a time of great upheavel in the flying vertebrate biosphere. Birds, little upstart theropods with small beginnings in China, were quickly overtaking the niches once held by such specialist pterosaurs as Pterodaustro and Dsungaripterus, as well as filling gaps apparently never filled by those bat-winged archosaurs. In time, only the azhdarchids remained. Enormous, long-necked creatures, the azhdarchids produced the largest flying vertebrates the world has ever seen. Hatzegopteryx had a 40-foot wingspan. The greatest pterosaurs were also the last, and at the end of the Cretaceous period, they left the skies forever. The decline of pterosaurs is, oddly enough, strikingly similar to the decline in the platforming genre in video games.    

2D platformers pulled gaming out of the slump of the 1980's and singlehandedly revived the industry. Were it not for Super Mario Bros., this website probably wouldn't exist. 2D platformers dominated the market, in fact, during the NES, SNES, and Genesis years. There were other, more experimental games, like The Legend of Zelda and Star Fox, but for the most part, when we think back on that golden age, we think of Mario, Metroid, Battletoads, and Plock.    

Well, maybe not Plock.    

Anyway, the 2D platformer began to lose importance during the beginning of the 3D era. The N64, PSOne, and Saturn all boasted polygonal, 3D games. Most of them were still platformers, sure, but the world was changing. Super Mario 64 and Banjo-Kazooie were the logical next step from the 2D platformers of yesteryear. On home consoles, genres expanded as the technology improved, and in fact, virtually all of the 2D platformers were eventually replaced by 3D platformers and their offshoots.    

Castlevania: Symophony of the Night is one incredible exception to that rule. Released on the PSOne in 1998, Symphony proved that through wonderful art direction and ingenious level design, the 2D platformer can remain relevant in a next-gen landscape. Alas, not many other developers or publishers saw it that way. Even Nintendo largely abandoned the 2D sidescroller on the home console front. Luckily, the form was not altogether lost.    

2D platformers lived on thanks to handhelds. The Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, and PSP all kept the genre alive, although none moreso than the GBA. The system is awash in excellent 2D platformers, from Metroid to Mario, Castlevania to Gunstar. The DS kept things alive as well, but was more reluctant to do so. Aside from the Castlevania series, straight 2D platformers are surprisingly hard to come by as more developers try to cram 3D gameplay onto the system. Even New Super Mario Bros. used polygonal models instead of hand-drawn graphics. The PSP did its part to keep 2D Mega Man games alive, as well, but for the most part, it specialized in 3D platformers like Ratchet & Clank and God of War.    

It was with great surprise that I played Wario Land: Shake It, a modern, 2D, hand-drawn platformer. It is a beautiful marvel of a game. The controls are simple, but the gameplay is surprisingly deep. It returns to the old standard of linear stage progression, but each stage is packed with alternate routes and secrets galore. The real draw is the art direction. All of the characters brilliantly animated--it really does look like a cartoon. Watching Wario squirm down a pipe is so wonderful! The backgrounds are multi-layered and never repeat--each stage is ridiculously detailed but never busy. And each element looks like it was drawn by hand in Photoshop or Illustrator...and it might have been!    

Wario Land: Shake It! is an old-school game with new-school sheen. It demonstrates that as technology increases, old genres can improve just as much as newer ones. Wario Land looks, in some ways, better than Super Mario Galaxy, and it's just as charming. Art direction is the key here. Wario Land probably isn't breaking the Wii, but does it have to? Considering the 2D platformer aesthetic, Wario Land: Shake It! is one of the best-looking games on the market today.    

I hope that people notice Wario Land in droves so that the 2D platformer picks up steam again. It's such a wonderful genre, one that is lost on newer gamers who grew up on N64s and PSOnes. But it's what modern gaming was built on. Gamers like me cut our teeth on 2D platformers, and it makes me sad to think that they are so forgotten.    

Hopefully, Wario Land is not analogous to Hatzegopteryx, a wonderful giant, the last of its kind, about to be dethroned by its competition. Rather, let's pray that 2D platformers go through an adaptive radiation and flourish, and azhdarchids will rule the skies once more.

[You are not prepared.]

121

TalkBack / REVIEWS: Mega Man 9

« on: October 02, 2008, 04:40:54 PM »

You are not prepared.
 http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/reviewArt.cfm?artid=16835

 Of the entire multi-tiered Mega Man franchise, the original NES games are the most devilishly difficult. The original game is by far the most brutal, but that’s not to say that the next five games are not also hard, because they are. You will die, and you will die often. Sometimes, you will wish you never bought or played the freaking game, but you always come out beaten, bloodied, and exhausted, but happy. Your twitch skills as a gamer have improved, your ability to tackle new situations by prioritizing has changed, and you have made Dr. Wily your bitch (several times). Mega Man 7, the first SNES outing, was difficult but not that difficult, and Mega Man 8, an interesting Sega Saturn/PlayStation game, had some tough bits but was ultimately very easy by comparison to its predecessors. Enter Mega Man 9, the first sequel to the original NES series in fifteen years. Developed by Inti Creates, the same team who’s been churning out the Mega Man Zero and Mega Man ZX games, Mega Man 9 brings back series creator Keiji Inafune with the goal of getting the original series back to its roots to the tune of Mega Man 2 and 3—widely considered the best Mega Man games ever made. They succeeded brilliantly in imparting on this WiiWare title the look, sound, and feel of those old games, even going so far as to include optional flicker and pop-up graphical effects (real gamers play Legacy mode!). They also added the difficulty of the series’ original title, and maybe cranked it up a few notches. Mega Man 9 is, by far, the most difficult game in the series, and gamers who have not experienced Mega Man in the past should heed such a warning.    

As MM9 opens, Mega Man’s hometown is under attack by rampaging robots, even though Dr. Wily has been put behind bars. Dr. Light, Mega Man’s good-hearted creator, is blamed for this new threat. Mega Man, Roll, and Axel take it upon themselves to clear their creator’s name and restore peace to the city. Naturally, this involves choosing one of eight new Robot Masters and battling through brilliantly designed, but punishingly difficult, levels with the Blue Bomber.    

Not completely abandoning the gameplay changes that accompanied MM7 and MM8, MM9 features "screws" as currency, which some enemies drop. You can save them up and spend them at Axel’s shop, where interesting items like the Energy Equalizer and Damage Shield are found. Some items are kept for the entire game (like those two), while others, like the Shock Absorber (survive falling on spikes) or Beat Rescue (survive falling in a hole) are one-use-only items. Axel’s shop is also where you’ll get most of your E Tanks and extra lives, although certain stages are liberally sprinkled with 1-ups. You can even purchase the option of playing the game without your helmet. Unfortunately, Axel’s shop ties into the game’s overall plotline. Yes, aside from an opening scene and an end scene, MM9 has a formal story. I found the story pesky and unfulfilling. Mega Man games have never been known for their strong writing, and that’s the one place where MM9 doesn’t feel like an old Mega Man game. This could’ve been remedied by some less-than-perfect "translation," but the writing is spot-on and uses big words. Unfortunately, this is uncharacteristic of the old games.    

The rest of the game is identical to previous NES Mega Man games: Choose a stage, battle your way through, and end up fighting a boss. More than ever before, figuring out the boss order is tantamount to success—especially for speed runs—because many of the Robot Masters are brutally powerful and mucho challenging to survive with your Mega Buster (pea shooter) alone. Just like the best of the old games, each stage has its own unique properties. Jewel Man’s stage has swinging platforms; Tornado Man forces you to fight wind, rain, ice, and deadly rotating platforms; Magma Man requires you to dodge quick-beam-like lava flows; and perhaps worst of all, Plug Man’s stage features those cursed disappearing blocks. Like the MMX games but unlike the NES Mega Man games, almost every stage in MM9 features a mini-boss. These mini-bosses can be easy (the flower droid), brutally difficult (the rock monster), or just plain awesome (use Tornado Man’s weapon on the fire dragon). Most of the expected Mega Man level trappings are still here, including precarious jumps or lava or spikes, enemies that suddenly pop out of bottomless pits, enemy spawn points in the worst possible places, and sections that require ridiculously precise timing.    

New to the series are achievements—lots of ‘em. Doing specific things, like speed runs, beating the game without your helmet, or firing over 500 shots with your Mega Buster, net you achievements, which as far as I can tell don’t unlock anything. They’re more for bragging rights than anything else, although this is one area I wish the Wii version of this game (it’s also available on the Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network) featured a gamerscore. This is ironic, considering that you might get the most out of a version of the game not originally targeted for it! One wonders if the achievements were thrown in there specifically for the XBL/PSN crowd. They’re still fun challenges to complete, though, even if you can’t really brag about them online.    

Inti Creates has certainly succeeded in making MM9 look like the old games. They built the entire game from scratch, without using an NES emulator or mock-up engine. This is a stunning achievement, folks, because MM9 is so well thought-out that it really feels more like a Virtual Console game than a WiiWare game. It’s like Capcom finally got around to releasing a Mega Man game that never made it Stateside. All of the sound effects, musical tracks, and even general pixel mappings are stunningly well done. Considering what Inti Creates was trying to achieve, one cannot help but admire the graphics. And as I said before, they even added screen flicker, graphical pop-up, and a few instances where the framerate skips around. These are not poor design consequences—Inti Creates had to program those bugs into the game itself. We’re talking a sick level of dedication, here, and it pays off. While the music never rises to the brilliant crescendo of MM2/3, it’s certainly among the best in the NES series.    

Capcom will be bombarding us with a hoard of DLC specifically for MM9, including the ability to play as Proto Man, extra difficulty settings, and even an extra stage. My gripe here is that it’s all going to cost a little extra. Proto Man, for example, will cost $2 to play as. Some of this is warranted, some of it not. The extra difficulty settings should’ve been in the core game. Even Proto Man could’ve been an unlockable character. But at least we’ve got options, and a way to expand on an already-awesome game. Merely as a technological achievement, MM9 is kickass. Gamers who’ve never played a Mega Man game before might be crushed under the sheer weight of the game’s monumental difficulty, so they might want to grab the Mega Man Anniversary Collection for training. Nostalgic gamers and Mega-fans should pick it up immediately, though, because it’s well worth twice what Capcom is charging.

Pros:
       

Awesome graphics, sound, and atmosphere

 

Incredible level design and novel ideas

 

Achievements extend the life of the game

 

DLC is always welcome

       Cons:
       

Brutal difficulty potentially eclipses that of the original game

 

Achievements don't mean as much on the Wii

 

Oddly enough, the storyline detracts from the experience

               Graphics: 10.0
       Wonderful, nostalgia-inducing graphics that look exactly like what they're supposed to represent. It's a trip down memory lane, and it's beautifully executed.

               Sound:  9.0
       Even though there are a too many instances of musical cues taken directly from the old games (traditionally, each game has had a different “boss select” tune), the individual level themes are among the best in the series. They are just as infectious as the older games, and you’ll be humming them in the shower before you know it.

               Control: 10.0
       Just as precise as the original games: jump, shoot, move left and right, and climb ladders. Using Rush Jet is still an activity fraught with peril, just the way it should be.

                      Gameplay:  8.5
       The cheap stuff is still there in full force. It’s infuriatingly difficult at times, which detracts, somewhat, from the enjoyment.

 

       Lastability:  9.0
       All those achievements will take awhile to accrue, and speed run times are ranked online. And the coming onslaught of DLC will keep you busy, too.

 

       Final:  9.0
       Mega Man 9 is a fantastic game that recreates a Mega Man game from the NES era that’s tough as nails. This is both the game’s biggest strength and greatest roadblock. The difficulty level will push many potential newcomers away, but old-school gamers will relish the challenge.      

[Find everything except the “MillionHeir.”]

122

TalkBack / REVIEWS: Mystery Case Files: MillionHeir

« on: September 19, 2008, 07:58:37 AM »

Find everything except the “MillionHeir.”
 http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/reviewArt.cfm?artid=16707

 You are a detective who detects things by finding small objects among large static backgrounds. You know those I Spy books? Yeah, like those. After you find enough objects from a long list, you solve a slide puzzle or some similar menial task, and then your witness coughs up information that doesn’t seem to have any relevancy to the case. Oh, right, the case. You’re investigating the disappearance (or murder, it’s never really made clear) of Mr. Phil T. Rich. The only way to investigate an area is to look for specific objects in rooms that make TGI Friday’s walls barren by comparison.    

As you investigate more witnesses and find more kitsch, you are awarded new devices that let you find even more objects, like an X-ray scope, flashlight, and the ability to interact with certain objects. For example, if one of the clues is "fill the bottle," you find an empty bottle, hold down L or R, and color it in.    

This is basically the entire game. On the "Hard" difficulty setting, you have a limited but very adequate amount of time to find all the objects in a room. If you’re stuck, you can always use a hint, which tells you where the next item on the list is. Yeah, the objects aren’t always as obvious as they appear—such is the charm—but there is very little to this game. At its most basic level, Mystery Case Files is a portable version of the I Spy books, so if you’re into that sort of thing, you might like this game.    

The static backgrounds are nicely detailed, and some feature ambient animations, like falling leaves or swinging cables. The music is subtle but appropriate given whatever image you’re investigating. Character sprites (witnesses) are charmingly exaggerated, although they never animate. After investigating a number of rooms, you’ll be given a DS-specific mini-game to complete, like a slide puzzle, traditional puzzle (you rotate the pieces with the stylus), or blowing on the mic to clear dust off a document. The mini-games are my favorite part of Mystery Case Files, because they provide a nice change of pace from the constant searches.    

You don’t actually do any detective work. It’s all put together for you in the background by your trusty computer, who takes your hand at every turn, leading you to your next objective without any muss or fuss. Thus, the plotline is forgettable and merely provides some abstract context to your endless eye-straining.    

I will say that the interface is well thought-out. Each static image is larger than the DS touch screen. You move around it by dragging the image around with your stylus, a motion that feels very comfortable. The top screen displays a thumbnail of the entire image and the list of things to find. Tap an item to find it, or hold down the L or R buttons and doodle with it to fulfill its often bizarre condition. The clue "Five crossed out" is particularly interesting.    

There are also some multiplayer options. Up to four players (each with their own copy of the game, of course) can either search a room cooperatively to achieve a fast time or competitively, to see who can find all the objects the quickest. But if your buddy does not have the game, you can send him or her the demo wirelessly. This is the same demo they can get on the Nintendo Channel.    

Overall, there’s just not much here. The game might actually have been more enjoyable without the pretext of a plotline. Just give me a bunch of puzzles with some mini-games thrown in for good measure, and that’s perfectly satisfactory. As a Touch Generations game, Mystery Case Files would’ve done well to simplify itself. CrossworDS didn’t need any flair or storyline. It’s a crosswords game. This is an “I Spy” game. If you like such things, you might like this, and if not, you can safely ignore it.

Pros:
       

More "I Spy" action than you can shake a stylus at

 

Control scheme feels natural and is, at times, inventive

 

Mini-games break up the image-searching tedium

 

There are some interesting multiplayer options

       Cons:
       

Plotline actually detracts from the experience

 

Some of the object clues are a little abstract

 

Multiplayer options require extra game cards

               Graphics:  8.0
       The visuals are good, being static images. Nothing is too small to see, and you’d really be amazed at how many little things make up each room. The character portraits are aesthetically pleasing, although I wish they were animated to some extent.

               Sound:  8.0
       I like all the music, subtle though it may be, and the ambient sound effects (wind rustling through the trees, drips in a mine, creaking doors in an old museum) add to the experience as well.

               Control:  9.0
       Love that stylus control.

                      Gameplay:  6.0
       Do a whole bunch of I Spy-ing, then a mini-game. Repeat endlessly. There’s not a lot here!

 

       Lastability:  8.0
       If you love this kind of game, there are dozens upon dozens of rooms to search, as well as multiple difficulty levels.

 

       Final:  6.0
       The game is just too limited for me to recommend it, especially when there are other Touch Generations games that are so much more entertaining. Tetris DS, CrossworDS, heck, even Professor Layton. Now, it’s true that none of them involve looking for tiny objects amid a sea of kitsch, but trust me when I say that such a task quickly become monotonous, and the plotline only distracts from one’s enjoyment of the title.      

123

TalkBack / Soulcalibur IV: An Informal Review

« on: September 16, 2008, 04:38:33 PM »

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/blogArt.cfm?artid=16695

  In general, I hate fighting games. I'm traditionally very bad at them, especially the 2D kind. God, get me behind the controller of a King of Fighters or Street Fighter game and you will see some first-class button mashing. As I struggle to land a single hit, my opponents often tease and jest, keeping just a few pixels from my position, and then let loose with some punishing 118-hit combo which basically ends the round. What about Tekken? That's a 3D fighter that actually feels like a different animal, but again, my performance makes that of a blind chimpanzee seem fairly hardcore. No, dear readers, Soulcalibur has been my one and only fighting game, from the Dreamcast onward. It is the only fighter, 3D or otherwise, I feel somewhat good at. And now that franchise has hit the PS3...and I love it. You might, too.    

What's always been so great about Soulcalibur (in my mind) is that it combines pick-up-and-playability with the motivation to become really good on your own. You can dedicate days to learning the in's and out's of a single character. And if you're talking about Ivy, you can spend weeks, now that her stances have changed again. On the other hand, if you just want to duke it out with the computer for some quick in-game change, you can do that, too. While the AI doesn't necessarily reward spamming, it doesn't heavily discourage it, so newbies and experts alike can get into the game.    

Soulcalibur on the Dreamcast was a piece of perfection, an arcade game faithfully reproduced on a home console and, more impressively, a console gamepad. When SC2 rolled around, I picked up the GameCube version so I could play as Link, and I found the fighting engine to be just as flexible and welcoming as it was before. Plus, the Hero of Time was a great addition to the cast (I wish he'd return!). I spent months with Soulcalibur 2. Like SC before it, SC2 had a sort of "mission mode," in which you fought under bizarre conditions to earn unlockables and coinage. SC2 also introduced the "Soul Charge," which powered up some attacks to become unblockable.    

The Soul Charge would say "bye bye" in SC3, a PS2 exclusive which differed too greatly from its predecessors to warrant much time. Mission Mode became "Chronicles of the Sword," a very strange RTS/Fighting hybrid which was slow-moving and, at the higher levels, ridiculously difficult. However, SC3 introduced two important new concepts to the series: Character creation and fighting multiple opponents during a single fight.    

And now we've got SC4, which has the potential to be the best game in the series. Overall, it falls a little short of the greatness that was SC2, but the gameplay is tighter, the mission structure is more refined, and the character creation aspect is impressively deep. What's more, SC4 adds a robust online element, although there are pros and cons to it that will need to be addressed in the next game.    

For the solo player, SC4 is divided roughly into thirds: Story Mode, which follows one character through five fights in their quest to obtain/destroy the Soul Calibur/Edge, Arcade Mode, which tests your skills against a string of difficult single battles, and Tower of Lost Souls, which provides SC4's "mission mode." Story Mode is notable both for its brevity (each playthrough lasts less than 10 minutes) and for the fact that ending sequences are told through in-game cinematics instead of boring static images and scrolling text. Story Mode is where the bulk of your time will be spent, mostly because it's a quick way to earn cash and level-up individual character traits (more on that later).    

Arcade Mode is designed with difficulty in mind. Players are asked to fight eight battles of increasing difficulty and are ranked based on their performance. These rankings can be compared with those of other players online, so if you're into that kind of thing, competition can be fierce. And like Story Mode, it's a good way to level-up your characters.    

Tower of Lost Souls was implimented with created characters in mind. You take up to three fighters through a series of floors and are given an option task to accomplish on each floor. For example, one challenge might be to switch out with your partner three times, while another demands that you never miss an attack. One of the toughest challenges is to defeat your opponent while the timer is on zero. Whenever you succeed in accomplishing a goal, you are rewarded with a fat cash prize or a piece of equipment for the Character Creation mode. As you climb higher in the tower, the difficulty increases substantially, so simply beating the opposition may take priority over acquiring the treasures (which you can re-try later).    

Character Creation is ridiculous in its depth and puts the same mode in SC3 to absolute shame. Remember in SC3 how you couldn't change your character's body type? Well, now you can. You can make a warrior woman with Mai Shiranui's proportions if you want. You can increase or decrease both the level of musculature and limb mass. The only thing you can't really change is height. And then there's the equipment--hundreds of pieces of interchangable gear for women and men, each with its own set of statistics. Your fighter will eventually be ordained with unique skills, such as "Auto Impact A," which turns a large fraction of your normal blocks into Guard Impacts, or "Nullify Ring-Out S," which makes being kicked off a ledge impossible. Each of the stats which modify which skill set (Power, Impact, Boost, Gauge, Special) fluctuates based on what gear and weapons you select. Do you see where this is going? Yeah, it's insane. What's more, each piece of equipment modifies your character's attack damage, defense, and total HP. Do you want to create a dude with 200% HP? You can do that, maybe at the expensve of your skill set, but the point is that it's possible. The game welcomes customization based on individual player strategy. And you can create up to 50 characters!    

You can even modify existing SC4 roster characters. While you can't change their unique costumes (besides change their colors), you are always able to switch up their secondary costumes. Primary character models are able to equip "Special Equipment," a group of accessories available only to SC4 roster characters which increase or decrease certain stats. You can then select that skill set as you would a different costume on the player select screen.    

The Character Creation mode's only real downside is that, unlike SC3, you are unable to create characters based on alternate weapons not found on the roster. Remember the tambourines and grieve edge boots in SC3? They're nowhere to be found here. Instead, you are limited to existing character movesets. As you defeat more opponents with any single moveset (like Kilik's), that moveset levels up, allowing that character access to more skills. Of course, once you gain access to the best skills, you will probably have to mess around with that character's weapons and equipment before you have the attribute points necessary to equip them!    

Online Mode is also introduced. You can play against opponents for fun or for rank. The more opponents you beat in a ranked game, the more experience you get, and the higher your online level increases. Online levels exist as a way for you to gauge your opponent's skill level before entering a game. I'm only at level 3, so I don't want to go up against some level 22 guy. For me, anyway, online mode is kind of a throwaway. After playing enough online to earn some Honors (Achievements), I gave it up, as there were problems.    

First, you can customize any match request, but when the result screen comes up, there will often be a lack of matching players. Second, if there ARE matching players, selecting one will usually result in the message "The Session is Already Full," and the game will boot you back to the match request screen, where you must re-enter your match request and sit 'n' twiddle your thumbs while the computer searches again. Also, you should never enter a match with less than 4 bars of connection, as doing so results in crippling lag. So if you like online play, that's really a lot to sit through. If you don't, like me, you can simply ignore it.    

Okay, so enough about the modes. What about the gameplay? It's Soulcalibur! X is horizontal attack, Triangle is vertical attack, O is kick, and X is block--same as always! Character movesets have been tweaked from the last game or reworked entirely (they gave Ivy a whole new stance), and some previously cloned characters have finally gotten their own movesets (Seigfried is no longer Nightmare's clone, and Amy plays very differently from Raphael, for example). Rock is still lame, though. There are several additions to the roster:    

Hilde is a heavily-armored, lance-wielding spitfire who, aesthetically, is the complete opposite of her female companions. She's also great fun to play as, but takes some getting used to, as her moveset feels much different than the other SC fighters.    

Shura, Angol Fear, Ashlotte, Kamikirimusi, and Scheherazade are all "bonus" characters designed by prominant Japanese comic book artists. Those five girls are heavily stylized (only Shura seems to fit the SC aesthetic) and have cloned movesets. They are unlocked as you play through Story Mode.    

Famously, Darth Vader appears on the PS3, while Yoda is on the 360. I suspect that, in time, each missing character will be available as DLC on both systems since the full character roster still has two open slots: One for a random character choice and another right next to Darth and Starkiller. Since I have a PS3, I got Anakin. He's slow but brutally powerful, and, oddly enough, fits in with the rest of the SC gang.    

But Starkiller, Vader's "secret" apprentice, doesn't. He holds his lightsaber backwards and enters every fight in an awkward stance. His attacks are powerful, sometimes too much so, but he's fairly difficult to control. Also, his design is generic and boring. I never play as Starkiller unless I have to use his broken Force Throw move to easily  ring-out opponents in the Tower of Lost Souls.    

The overall gameplay package gets a new addition called "Critical Finishes," which are essentially fatalities. However, they are brought on by the defender. Players who block too often will bring their Soul Gauge down. Cracking that orb results in a stun, during which time the opposition can unleash a one-hit-kill maneuver. Stay at least partially on the offensive and you'll be fine, although some of the Critical Finishes are really cool. Switching out is another first for the series. During the Story and Tower modes, you can press R2 to switch between your available characters. Doing so will allow the resting character to regain their HP.    

I really wish they'd used a multiplayer switch option, so that two players could tackle the Tower together. Maybe in the next game.    

Graphically, SC4 is eye-poppingly gorgeous. The shadows, particles, and light effects dazzle and confuse the mind, while the character models move with newfound life and great facial expression work. And don't discount the background elements. You'll be fighting alongside hippos and dodo birds, a magma cauldon, and, yes, the Death Star Hanger as ships fly in and out. My only wish is that...*gulp*...SC4 had the same "breast physics" that DoA4 and DoAX2 do. Why? Well, it looks strange when Ivy's string bikini is somehow holding her bustling busom in a lock when that's clearly not what would be happening. The same follows for Shura and Sophitia, both of whom should be falling out of their tops.    

Not that I want them to be falling out of their tops, but when the rest of the game's physics engine is so top-notch, it's strange to see that one area (two areas?) not conform.    

The music is equally awesome and epic, although I can't say the same for the voice acting, which retains the series trademark of being hammy and uninspired. Half of it doesn't make any sense, but at least they improved it from SC3 by making some of the character say context-sensitive things (like when Sophitia fights Cassandra in Story Mode). But really, there is no storyline. I mean, there is, sorta, but that's not why you're playing this game.    

So yeah, SC4 is freaking awesome. Yeah, there are some minor problems here and there, but nothing big. Overall, it's a wonderful, wonderful game and I can't recommend it any higher. In fact, the only reason I say it's slightly inferior to SC2 is that SC2 had a far more robust Museum, whereas the one in SC4 is meager and unimpressive. But again, that's not the main draw. That'd be the fighting engine, graphics, Character Creation and...    

Well...    

Bewbies. Let's be honest. ;-)

124

TalkBack / PAX '08: The Home Stretch

« on: September 02, 2008, 03:48:44 PM »

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/blogArt.cfm?artid=16629

  Sunday, August 31st was my last day at PAX. I didn't even stay the whole time. I was exhausted, paranoid about the time (I didn't have a watch), nervous that I'd miss my bus to the airport, and worried that somebody at the hotel would crush my Fallout 3 poster (signed by Gabe & Tycho) while it and my roller sat in their luggage waiting room. So that morning found me a bit frazzled! However, I still managed to have a fairly good time at PAX, and even played some of the games I'd been wanting to play.    

I awoke at 9:30 and checked out of my hotel room first thing. Happily, my kind hosts allowed me to keep my excess luggage there until my airport shuttle arrived to pick me up. So I once again grabbed my green messanger bag and headed off to the convention center. First stop: The Expo Hall, which had not yet opened. A line had formed at its hallowed doors, and we were quickly led into the hall. I took this opportunity to play two songs in Guitar Hero 4. I rocked to "The Joker" and "Livin' on a Prayer" with the lead and bass guitar parts, respectively. I asked the guy who played drums whether he liked them more than Rock Band's. He said yes, but that the drums in Guitar Hero 4 seemed more difficult.    

I watched with horror as the next band attempted Muse's "Assassin," which makes "Knight of Cydonia" look like child's play. So that was fun. Then I played "Iron Chef America" for the Wii. You chop, stir, flip, grate, and add garnish using the Wii Remote. And here's the scary part: It's surprisingly fun and engaging. Next stop: Sega's booth, where there were lines for every game except Dinosaur King, a Pokemon game with...wait for it...scientifically accurate dinosaurs. Well, not so much accurate in that the tyrannosaurs are breathing fire, but in terms of gross anatomy. It was wonderful. My Triceratops totally beat my opponent's Kentrosaurus with some kind of a high-flying flip. The Sega exec assured me that many kinds of dinosaurs were represented in the final game, including Carnotaurus. This excited me. It's also worth mentioning that the battles take place in 3D, and it's damn good 3D.    

Again, I tried without success to play THE CONDUIT, but I watched a few more people play. It borrows a little bit from Halo in that the main weapon is essentially an energy pistol, and you can only have two weapons at a time. Lots of people were chucking grenades, and I noticed that grenades have a real bounce to them, and rarely landed where intended. Maybe it was just a rush-job demo. Let's hope so, because as it stands, THE CONDUIT looks a little green around the gills.    

Do people even say "green around the gills" anymore?    

After eating pizza for lunch, I went and sat in on Family Feud: PAX Edition! It was very funny. 150 audience members were polled for the questions, and two teams had to guess what the most popular answers were. I only sat in on the last half-hour, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. What was the first video game console you played? Most popular answer: NES. Least popular answer: Sega Master System. Other answers included Commodore 64, SNES, and PS1. What do you do when the electricity goes out? Most popular answer: Play a handheld! Least popular answer: Pleasure yourself. Other answers included reading, drinking, and staring at the wall or crying. Very funny. Right after that was a 2nd Q&A session with Tycho and Gabe. It wasn't very long, but those are some funny guys! I asked when the PA figurines are coming out, and Gabe said they're looking for a sculptor, but we should expect them soon. They're also changing publishers from Dark Horse to Random House for the PA collection books. The next one should hit early '09.    

Then it was time for the Spore screening! Spore looks awesome. The creator engine is f*cking insane, as many of you already know. The exec showed us a Yoda creature. It looked just like Yoda. You start out as a little one-eyed bacteria swimming around and eating plant or animal matter. You find a mate, make an egg, and then get to select a new adaptation for the baby. You then play as the baby, and this process continues for about fifteen to twenty minutes. What you eat and what adaptations you choose will have consequences in the Creature phase. For example, if you had spikes on your head in the bacteria phase, you will enter the Creature phase with the ability to headbutt enemies. The growth process is similar in the Creature phase, but you can now cause other species to go extinct.    

After the Creature phase, you graduate to the Tribe phase, at which point my interest began to wane. Because you now manage an entire tribe of critters, you have to do a lot more micromanagement. Menus take on new importance. I can only imagine that the next two phases, Society and Space, involve even more micromanagement. It looks great for the ability to craft your own monster (I'd like to build some beasties from the book Expedition by Wayne Douglass Barlowe) but I don't want to hold society's hand. When you cross from adventure game to sim game, I say "meh." Still, you have to appreciate the sheer scope of Spore. It really is like nothing else that's come before.    

After that, I took a break from the expo and headed out to Zanadu, a comic shop not too far from the convention center. I found some books for the flight home and a kickass statue of Brandy from my favorite comic, Liberty Meadows (cost a pretty penny, though). Then I walked Brandy back to the hotel because I didn't want to be dragging her everywhere I went. By the time I got back there, I was tired and cranky, so I picked up my baggage and poster and waited for the airport bus. It arrived quickly, and would you believe that I got a much earlier flight into town? I was so happy.    

Overall, PAX was fun, and I'm glad I went, but unless they find a bigger venue next year, I don't think I'll be going back. You gotta go once, though, right? And hey, I met one of my readers, which is cool.

125

TalkBack / PAX '08: The Return of Rocky Road

« on: August 30, 2008, 03:31:00 PM »

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/blogArt.cfm?artid=16618

  After being totally overwhelmed yesterday, I awoke this morn knowing what to expect, and went in with fresh eyes. Today, I learned that PAX amounts to a whole lot of "hurry up and wait" segments, punctuated by brief moments of triumph. I had a pretty packed schedule today, so I started early. Among my achivements: Playing lots of demos, meeting one of my readers, seeing awesome demo screenings, and of course, getting the autographs of our esteemed hosts. Tomorrow will not be so hectic, as my bus leaves in the late afternoon and the expo hall will be winding down earlier. Luckily, today was a freaking blast.    

I awoke without the help of an alarm, even though I'd set the alarm the night before. But my body woke me up at 10:15 a.m., a quarter-hour later than the theoretical alarm time. Groggy and venom-tongued, I stumbled from my comfy bed down to the streets, looking for a coffee shop. I arrived at the convention center quickly, as I now knew what route to take. I shuffled up the escalators to the in-building coffee shop, where I waited for probably forty minutes for a large hot chocolate (I hate coffee). It was made with an inferior product to what I'm used to! Unabated, I wandered toward the expo hall with demos in mind.    

The first game I played was Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia. Ladies and germs, it's the exact same game we've been playing since Dawn of Sorrow. The only difference is that ALL of your weapon and magic attacks are dependant on your MP. There are some standard moves which you learn (like a rubber-band-like jumping mechanism) which do not require MP, but everything from knife throwing to sword-swinging does, which is bizarre. The demo was short, and the girl at the DS "booth" claimed that Konami would only say that the game was coming out this fall. I will give Konami some credit for changing some of the monster sprites, but otherwise it's a pretty standard portable Castlevania.    

Next up: Kirby's Super Star ULTRA. Was I impressed? No. If you still have your old SNES and the original game, you're fine. The demo consisted only of "Spring Breeze," the first game on the SNES cart, and everything from the character sprites to the animations were exactly the same. There are some new 3D cutscenes, which did not excite me.    

I was able to download a demo of Prince of Persia DS at a DS download station, and I can tell you all that it sucks. It's a sidescroller that's controlled almost entirely by the touchscreen, kind of like Phantom Hourglass but not nearly as polished. The demo lasted all of five minutes, and at least four of those minutes were tedious and unenjoyable.    

But enough about the DS, let's talk Wii! Let me assure all of you that Wario Land: Shake It is the next big Wii game for the fanbase. It is a beautiful game that is very reminiscent of the old Game Boy originals. Like those titles, Shake It is a straight 2D platformer. The big difference here is that Wario can pick up and shake things including bags of money, enemies, statues, etc. The goals in each stage differ, but getting plenty of loot is always a top priority. I can't describe how well the game plays and looks. There's a real cartoon vibe there, influenced in a small way by how anime cartoons "move." I loved it.    

I got to play Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Force Unleashed wasn't on the show floor), and while it's impressive in its own right, I almost feel like the Wii is holding it back. The character models are a bit blocky, and model outlines are a little fuzzy. I was impressed with how well the lightsaber combat worked, though. Even without the Wii Motion Plus, swinging the Wii Remote in various directions was mimicked onscreen very precisely. Only the player vs. player combat was shown, though. Whether the single-player mode will offer anything different, I can't say. I hope so, though.    

I watched people play Mario Sluggers, Wii Music, and Animal Crossing, and I cried inside. Wii Music is awful. I didn't partake, but the entire game amounts to pretending rhythmically swing the Wii Remote to a song. If you don't get the rhythm right, the game doesn't care. And nobody had fun playing it. The Miis onscreen just bop and sway to whatever you're doing. The graphical presentation just isn't there. I heard one of the Nintendo reps explaining to somebody that the game is for the whole family, and anybody can sit down and enjoy it, no matter what their skill level. Meanwhile, ten feet away, people were ROCKING THE F*CK OUT in Guitar Hero: World Tour.  Animal Crossing looks like crap. And I don't mean that it looks boring (which it does), but that, graphically, it looks like poop. The Wii is a powerful piece of hardware, folks. It can produce beautiful games like Mario Galaxy and Umbrella Chronicles. Animal Crossing looks like something the GameCube could outdo! It was also odd that the world rotates as you walk around, so things pop up over the horizen. I miss the good ol' isometric viewpoint.   Please don't make me talk about Mario Sluggers. It makes me feel frightened and confused.    

And then we get to...THE CONDUIT. Now, I was unable to actually play the game, but I watched many, many people play, and I asked Tim (from the forums...his avi name escapes me at the moment) how it played, because he played it. Bottom line: If THE CONDUIT were on any other system, even the PS2...we would not be giving it a second glance. I know, you guys were really looking forward to THE CONDUIT, but you heard it here first--it's nothing special. The worst sin is that it's generic-looking. Decimated city, lots of bipedal alien soldiers and gunfire. Whoopie. There is a distinct lack of lighting, and the environments look blocky and bland. Aliens are greenish yellow. That never changes--even the boss was greenish yellow. Tim described the control scheme as finnicky, and he said that it's very similar to Metroid Prime 3, but not as refined. This doesn't surprise me. None of the people I watched were able to aim with any real accuracy. The crosshair was going crazy. Overall, aiming seemed jerky. Tomorrow, I hope to actually PLAY the game, but the line today was horribly long.    

The big event for me was the Fallout 3 screening. I waited in line for probably an hour to see the half-hour demo on a big screen. Reps handed out little cards to everyone. There were five or six different cards, with different "attributes" like Intelligence or Strength. Tim and I thought they were just cheap swag. The demo was insane. You get to blow up a damn village with an atomic bomb and fight mutant crabs while creepy 40's music plays on your radio. You can target specific body parts on enemies and blast their heads off with an iron stake. You can activate helper droids which fire brutal laser beams at opponents, and knock dudes across the room with a gas-powered melee glove.    

It's awesome.    

When the demo was over, we found out that the cards actually meant better swag. Depending on your card's rarity, you got one of several prizes, the best of which included an Xbox 360, 5 years of Xbox Live, whatever Fallout version you wanted, and a bunch of other cool stuff. I got the most common card, which meant a poster. Yippee. Tim got a hand puppet, that lucky dog. After that, we stood in line at Tycho & Gabe's autograph signing. I got the boys to sign my Fallout 3 poster (now suddenly more awesome!) and my PA collection book.    

We then ran into a theater for another demo screening--Prince of Peria and Far Cry 2. Prince of Persia looks devestatinglyl awesome. It seems to combine the environmental exploration of Sands of Time and/or Tomb Raider: Anniversary with the freerunning mechanic of Assassin's Creed and a unique one-on-one combat system. The game is stunningly beautiful, one of the best-looking games on the show floor. Ubisoft is doing a cross-media promotional thing for the Prince, including a comic (art by Gabe, shipped with the limited edition), and special online backstory videos. Far Cry 2 was just as impressive, but I'm not a big fan of the FPS genre. Those who DO like shooters should know that Far Cry 2 looks wonderful. You can set fires in shacks or grasslands, and the fire spreads. Water ripples with every action, trees sway in the breeze, and enemies react very intelligently to your presence and actions.    

Then I came back to the hotel room, because I was freaking beat. I missed the two panels I wanted to see because I was stuck in lines, but I'm glad I saw the demo screenings, and I can't turn down autographs by Gabe & Tycho. Tomorrow I hope to play a few more demos and attend a 2nd Q&A session. If you want to meet me, Tim and I should be attempting to play Fallout 3 and/or Starcraft II between the hours of 10 and 11.