61 Frames Per Second : xbox 360

Kids' Games too Complicated for Kids

Bob Mackey — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 18:00:00 GMT

Since I try as hard as I can to be a well-rounded gamer, I like to experience as many kinds of games as possible. Take Fallout 3, for example; I was once highly allergic to non-linear, Western RPGs, but in the past two weeks I've invested over 50 hours into Bethesda's little masterpiece. And I had the same intentions when I picked up Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise--I had no idea if I would like the game, but the endless amounts of praise it received (from adults, mind you) convinced me to buy it at a budget-friendly price. I'm not averse to kiddie games, but I was initially worried that maybe Pinata was going to be a little too simple for my gaming tastes.

But when I got through the game's all-too-brief tutorial, I could only think one thing: "Children are supposed to understand this?"

As someone who's been a gamer for over 20 years now, I pride myself on being able to figure out even the most complicated of in-game mechanics; but when I'm given no assistance by the game itself, I'm usually not too enthused about playing for long. I ran into this problem when I decided to slip into the Civilization series a few summers ago; after picking up Civ III and realizing that my only tutorial was a 200-page book, most attempts to come up with any sort of strategy were shot down by my lack of knowledge of how the game actually worked--and this was after reading all of thosse pages. Viva Pinata has its own tutorial and isn't nearly as complex as Sid Meier's world sim, but you're only taught the very basics of Pinata-raising, leaving important questions like "What is the goal of the game? How do I get money? Why do murdered Pinatas come back from the dead?" unanswered.

It should be noted that most of this information can be found in the game--albeit in a text-only "help" section that's nearly impossible to read on my large SDTV (thank you, Rare). I am having fun with Viva Pinata, but after playing it for a few hours, and watching my girlfriend tend to her own paper mache critters, I've noticed that some of the most basic elements of the game have still gone unexplained. After playing my share, it's hard to believe that Viva Pinata could ever be appealing to kids naturally attracted to bright and colorful cartoon animals; the game requires as much in-depth micromanagement as your typical SimCity, though the economy is much more abstract.

I'm happy that I find the game entertaining--if a bit messy and confusing--but VP is really an adult's game dressed up in kiddie clothing. This works out fine for all of us, but Rare seems to be a bit confused about their target audience. I'd be interested in knowing if any of you 61FPS readers out there have been privy to a child's experience of playing Viva Pinata; it's possible that I may be underestimating the abilities of our youth.

If you're interested in the subject, you should also check out John's post about the kid-friendliness of VP; our opinions differ greatly.

Related Links:

Of Children and LEGO Games: A Valid Concern
The Impetuousness Of Youth
Children are the Future (Of Cheap Gaming Junk)

Ghostbusters: Slimer Edition to Come with Free Plastic

Bob Mackey — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 01:15:00 GMT

What you're looking at right now--courtesy of 1UP.com--are the various plastic trinkets bundled with Amazon.com's Ghostbusters Exclusive Slimer Edition (not pictured: LEGO ripoff figurines of four random ghouls). How much would you pay for a collection of plastic trinkets that could easily find their way into your average McDonald's Happy Meal? 10 dollars? 20 dollars?

How about 70 dollars?

That's right, for a mere 70 dollars more than the "bare-bones" retail version, Ghostbusters: Slimer Edition will reap you the following rewards:

* An exclusive Slimer bust designed and created by the original movie sculptor, Steve Johnson. Comes complete with a certificate of authenticity signed by the sculptor himself.
* Exclusive Ghostbusters Minimates. Only be available with the Slimer Edition.
* Exclusive Ghostbusters Gamer Graffix Console Skins.
* Exclusive Ecto 1 Key Chain with lights and sound.

Along with Steve Johnson's signature, I'm wondering if the sculptor will also include a few choice words about economic responsibility. "You moron!" and "So long, suckers!" both seem to fit the bill. Of course, if you drop 70 extra dollars--let me repeat, 70 extra dollars--on this shameless and exploitative cash grab, it's possible that you deserve more than an insult scribbed on a certificate of authenticity. Food for thought.

Related Links:

Screen Test: Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters: There Are No Words For How Good Bustin' Makes Me Feel
Film to Games: Ghostbusters is the Beginning of a (Hopefully) Beautiful Friendship

Vandal Hearts Resurrected, Has Terrible Character Art

John Constantine — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 22:00:00 GMT

You’d never suspect that, once upon a time, strategy RPGs were a rare and beautiful beast. Twelve years ago, you wouldn’t open a magazine and think, “Ah, yes, I see. This month there are thirteen different Game Boy games coming out from Namco, Square, Inis, Nippon Icchi, and Atlus that will allow me to train tiny warriors to walk across a colorful grid to slaughter evil beasts. Oh, look, there’s six more on Sony’s Playstation and nine more on Sega’s Saturn. Can’t wait to see next month’s haul. I’ll be moving across those grids and having fun until the sun goes out, by gum!” It just didn’t work like that. There were only a few of them. There was Tactic’s Ogre, which was made by Yasumi Matsuno. Then there was Final Fantasy Tactics which was, um, made by Yasumi Matsuno. But then there was Vandal Hearts, a dead ringer for Matsuno’s SRPGs that was, in fact, not made by Matsuno. It was one of Konami’s early Playstation/Saturn RPGs that, like its cousin Suikoden, could have easily been mistaken for a Super Nintendo game. It had its fans, but after one sequel it disappeared into videogame history. That’s why Konami’s announcement of a Xbox Live Arcade/Playstation Network prequel, Vandal Hearts: Flames of Judgment, is such a surprise. They showed off some of the game at their Gamer’s Night 2009 event and Vandal Hearts is looking pretty different ten years after its last installment. First, the game’s entirely polygonal now, with a much darker color palette than it had back in the day. Its character art also looks less like this:

And more like this:

Bleh.

Word is Vandal Hearts: Flames of Judgment is out on XBLA in August and PSN shortly thereafter. More snide commentary on the art style as we see it.

(Link: Siliconera)

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The 61FPS Review: Suikoden Tierkreis
PSOne on PSN: Somehow, it’s Suikoden
Beating the Dead Horse Who Has It Coming: Playstation Releases on PSN

The End to Microsoft SpaceBucks?

Bob Mackey — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 17:30:00 GMT

We can all agree that digital download marketplaces have been one of the best advancements of this console generation; sure, we sometimes get gauged on horse armor and whatever Namco-Bandai's got up their sleeve, but a lot of this gen's best games would be MIA if they couldn't be bought for a small, download friendly fee. The only problem with this--on XBLA and the Wii's Shopping Channel, anyway--has been the necessity of "points," the fake console currency purchased using real money. In theory, this is a nice way for console manufacturers to enforce one consistent form of exchange throughout many territories, but the fact that both Nintendo and Microsoft make you purchase points in prescribed amounts means that nearly every purchase nets you a tiny remainder of useless change.

Nintendo may be unapologetic in their use of funny money--the launch of the DSi introduced a new form of currency separate from the points you purchase with your Wii--but Microsoft seems to be taking baby steps with the new XBox Live Arcade store on Amazon.com.

Credit goes to Cheap Ass Gamer for the news, which I haven't seen reported much elsewhere (unless I'm not paying attention). It's certainly not world-changing, but it'll be nice not to have to drop a few extra bones whenever I want to buy anything from XBLA. I'd be really interested in seeing DLC (as opposed to stand-alone games) show up on Amazon, but until that happens, this is at least a step in the right direction.

Related Links:

The Problem With XBLA Pricing
For Indie Games, These are the Salad Days
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The Four Greatest Videogame/Drug Combinations of All Time (Speaking From Personal Experience)

John Constantine — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 20:00:00 GMT

The world’s worst fears are true: you need to take drugs to play Grand Theft Auto. The only way to get the most out of your time in Liberty City is to eat ecstasy, let the chemical take hold, and swim in an ocean of thick joy as you wreak impossible acts of havoc on the digital world’s citizens. I’m sorry I’m stealing your car, I need it right now, but I looooove you, man. Just the way it is, I guess. Bold choice, Rockstar! I kid. It was no doubt an unpleasant surprise for Richard Thornhill, a father of two, to open his recently purchased copy of GTA and find four mysterious pills sitting in the game’s case. I can’t imagine the confusion and fear. My god, what have I touched? Is this poison?

There’s nothing more noisome than someone telling you that drugs of any stripe enhance an experience. Oh man, you can’t listen to Dark Side of the Moon if you aren’t stoned, man. Shut up. You’re a moron. I would, however, be a liar if I said that I haven’t had a marvelous time playing videogames while using illicit substances. Yes, like President Obama, I too inhaled during the heady days of my youth. Amongst other things. Let us take a brief stroll down memory lane. I will be your pharmacological guide across the gaming landscape.

For the record, you don’t need to eat ecstasy to play Grand Theft Auto. That is, unless you’re British.

Marijuana and Resident Evil 4

I don’t like pot anymore. I find it to be, as Warren Ellis described LSD, abrasively psychological. It makes me feel stupid and completely out of control of my own brain. Back when, though, I found THC’s sloppy haze of goodwill and creativity very pleasant. It was never conducive to anything that requires paying attention, though. With one exception. A few puffs of Maple Leaf Indica before I fired up Resident Evil 4 for the very first time made a memorable game beginning an unforgettable claustrophobic terror. The first time I took control of Leon Kennedy, the camera was so uncomfortably close to him that it felt like I was there peeking over his shoulder. No, Leon don’t go in there! Let’s get the hell out of this forest! There are demon Spaniards everywhere!

Alcohol and Burnout Paradise

Drunk driving is one of the stupidest, most detestable things a human being can do. If you’ve had a drink, don’t even get into the driver seat of a car. You can’t operate it. You will hurt someone. If you want a quick lesson in what will happen, fire up Burnout Paradise next time one drink’s turned into three. The game’s already about terrifying reckless vehicular feats, but the shock of colliding with a wall while intoxicated is outrageous. You can’t help but laugh as your cheeks flush. That was freaking TERRIFYING!

Ecstasy and Duck Tales
MDMA is dangerous stuff. It leaves you exhausted. Even more dangerous because everything you’ve ever heard about its effects are true. It feels very good. The flood of serotonin into your system fills you up with a powerful and irresistible feeling of intimacy with everything and lends even the most mundane experience a nigh on spiritual level of profundity. Much as playing Capcom’s Duck Tales does. Sensing a good thing, I mixed the two. Scrooge McDuck’s happy greed became a desperate struggle to hold on to everything in the world because it just meant so much. You think the Moon theme was bittersweet before? Whew. Yeah, ecstasy made Duck Tales a moving spiritual journey. That’s why I don’t do ecstasy anymore.

Nutmeg and The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time

I like to think of myself as the kind of guy who will try anything twice. Life’s meant for living, right? That’s what Chicken Soup for the Disaffected Urbanite says at least. Truth is I’m pretty meek, afraid of new experiences and change. Sometimes, you just have to roll with it. Like when I found out that nutmeg — you know, the spice — can be used as a psychotropic. Uh huh. There’s a reason you don’t put more than a sprinkle of the stuff on your eggnog. Not because it induces a hallucinatory state for close to twelve hours, and not because it’ll make you incapable of pooping for a day, but because it tastes like god damn turpentine. Eaten in large quantities though it can and will make you feel like you are TRAVELLING THROUGH TIME. There’s only one thing for it under those conditions. You must become the Hero of Time. Obviously.

Related links:

GWI: Gaming While Intoxicated
Boy Addicted to Call of Duty 4 Found Dead
The Duck Tales Moon Theme--With Lyrics
OST: DuckTales

In Defense of the QTE: Ninja Blade

John Constantine — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 23:00:00 GMT

Now that the man’s winding down his career, let us honor Yu Suzuki for his most important contribution to game design: the QTE. Hey now. I can hear you rolling your eyes. We might be sick of pressing the X button every single time Crystal Dynamics wants Lara Croft to kick a tiger with style, but the quick time event provides us with some of videogames’ most satisfying thrills. They aren’t inherently bad. They’re just implemented very, very poorly. This week, you’ll be able to walk out into the world and pick up a copy of From Software’s Ninja Blade. Hell, you can go home right now and download a demo of Ninja Blade just to have a taste. One level is all you need to exemplify just how good quick time events can be in a game.

Here’s why.

First, a definition. In God of War’s wake, “quick time event” has transformed from a noun into a sort of critics’ short hand. It’s a blanket term to describe when, in a game where you have direct control of a character, the normal control is taken away and you watch a unique or atypical animation. While the animation plays, you must press a specific button as prompted on the screen. If you don’t, you’ll have to replay the sequence. Now, there are many parts of modern games that can be described this way and not all of them are quick time events. For example, in action games like MadWorld and Yakuza 2, you’re prompted with special inputs — press X next to a car, swing the Wiimote down — to finish off enemies. The most colorful finishing moves have you stringing these inputs together. These are not quick time events. They’re contextual actions. A quick time event is a choreographed, dramatic sequence where prompts imitate an action that you do not have direct control over. Resident Evil 4 has some classic examples. You, the player, steer Leon to the top of a hill and move forward. The game then shifts the camera to a group of enemies on a cliff above you. They push a boulder off said cliff that chases you and to escape you repeatedly press a button, which keeps Leon running. That button has nothing to do with movement during regular play. If you don’t press it here, the game ends. That’s a quick time event. They can, and have, enrich games with emotionally charged moments the game wouldn’t have otherwise.

The chief argument against quick time events is that they pull you out of a game by stripping away control, if only partially. They’re gaudy cheats to mask the passive storytelling devices of film instead of relying on a game’s interactivity to inform its drama and incident. It’s a valid argument against bad quick time events. The most recent games starring the aforementioned Lara Croft, particularly Tomb Raider Legend, have terrible quick time events made up of sixty second cinematics halved by a single, easy to miss button press. When implemented well, though, a quick time event is anything but a mask for inactive game sequences, as in Quantic Dream’s Indigo Prophecy. The game allows you limited sequences of full character control, relying on quick time events with inputs that imply the action to make up most of the play. Lucas Kane is running from police officers and needs to dodge left so you’re prompted to press both analog sticks in that direction. You aren’t moving Lucas, but the movement of both sticks translates as urgency, and agency, for you. These QTEs are fast to match the pace of the game and end up making for affecting play because of their speed and mimicry of the action. That’s the key to QTE success; tying your input as close to possible to dramatic actions that are impossible to depict, or make interactive, in the game itself.

Ninja Blade’s first level is about half quick time events and they are incredible spectacles. The level ends with a fight against a giant, grotesque spider on top of a skyscraper. The first part of the fight is familiar three-dimensional action; you move around with the level analog stick and press X, Y, and B buttons on the Xbox 360 controller to slice and stab with a sword. The second part, after whittling down the spider’s defenses, has you riding the spider up a skyscraper before riding a wrecking ball across the night sky, and then crushing the spider with it. There isn’t a way in games to make this one-hundred percent interactive and retain its presentation. Not yet at least. So sequence is a quick time event, and through a mixture of rumble in the control, speed of button prompts, and inputs that approximate other actions in the normal game, it’s completely engaging.

Like I said, QTEs don’t damn a game. They’re just another tool. Quality depends on the craftsmen.

Related links:

Love-Hate: In Defense of the Cutscene
Overpowering the Flavor: Cooking Mama World Kitchen and Cutscene Clutter
Whatcha Playing: Weight of the Stone
Sonic Unleased: Worse Than Syphilis
Sega's Yu Suzuki Steps Down
Where is Yu Suzuki?

The 61FPS Review: Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard

Bob Mackey — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 18:00:00 GMT

Longtime Simpsons writer George Meyer once stated “Cleverness is the eunuch version of funny.” And Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard is just that: clever, but not funny. The game starts with a promising premise: after a long career with many titles under his belt, titular video game action hero Matt Hazard finds himself unemployed as the result of some poor career decisions. So when an opportunity to revive his popularity arises, Matt jumps on it—without realizing his new starring role is a trap concocted by former Hazard gamer Wallace Wellesley, whose life was ruined by the extreme difficulty of Matt’s games. What follows from this setup is an action game starring an action hero who’s world-weary and well aware of his genre’s tropes; but for as much promise as this idea holds, it’s really just an awkward, toothless, and unfunny framing device for a lousy third-person shooter.

To explain the overlying theme of Eat Lead’s humor, it’s first important to define a writer’s term that’s not universally known: “hanging a lantern.” To fix any glaring issues that may annoy an audience to the point of distraction, a writer can “hang a lantern (or lampshade)” on a problem by having a character acknowledge it, thereby quieting any anxieties. That being said, the majority of Matt Hazard’s jokes have the hero grumbling about gaming clichés we find ourselves grumbling about; for example, the requisite tutorial at the beginning of the game has Matt complaining about the patronizing nature of being rewarded for completing the simplest of tasks.

But there are two major problems with Eat Lead’s comic intent: A.) Matt Hazard’s self-awareness isn’t inherently funny, and B.) hanging a lantern on problems may work in fiction, but it certainly doesn’t work in video games.

It would be easier to excuse Matt Hazard’s gross miscarriage of humor if the action was halfway decent, but Eat Lead’s third-person cover-based shooting is so awful that the game doesn’t even try to salvage it with lame jokes about how awful it truly is. Instead, it presents the bulk of the game with complete sincerity, with Matt making a few stock action hero quips (out of a very limited repertoire) with absolutely no sense of irony. It’s all a bit strange, because if anything in Matt Hazard requires some serious lantern-hanging, it’s the monotonous, joyless gunfights that wear out their welcome by the end of the first level.

Basically, the bulk of Matt Hazard involves clearing room after room of bad guys who wear different clothes from level to level, but operate with the exact same brain. The addition of cover adds a little spice to Eat Lead’s blandness, but the fact the enemies can practically teleport anywhere into a room ruins any sense of strategy a player could have.

After passing about a dozen identical enemy encounters in Matt Hazard, I thought to myself, “The basic idea of killing everything that moves in a video game isn’t inherently boring, so why is Eat Lead so frustratingly dull?” It was then I realized the game’s biggest flaw: it gives you absolutely no feedback. The gunplay is inconsistent to the point where killing enemies feels like mindless busywork with absolutely no sense of accomplishment; sure, you can go for headshots, but when they only work a third of the time, why bother? And you get no real reward for clearing a room full of enemies, aside from the meager array of underpowered weapons they may drop.

At its most fundamental level, the gameplay of something like Resident Evil 4 isn’t much different, but Capcom’s designers know that an ever-increasing trail of rewards—along with some very nice set pieces—can make even the most methodical of gameplay premises fun. But with Matt Hazard, your only real reward for eradicating a group of enemies is moving on to repeat your actions in a different room with some minor graphical changes; that box you hid behind in one room might turn into a side of beef or an outhouse in the next. The action in Eat Lead is so repetitive that my best moments with the game could be found in the brief, happy instances where I wasn’t shooting anyone.

A lot of Eat Lead could be salvaged if it was actually funny, but the game drops the pretense of humor throughout the levels only to have the most obvious, easy video game jokes appear during the segments in-between. Really, this material doesn’t get funnier than what we saw on Captain N: The Game Master 20 years ago, and, at times, it’s almost if Matt Hazard is trying to ape the lazy humor of shows like Family Guy by being content with referencing things the audience may be aware of, but avoiding any kind of creative twist on said things.

The parody involved in Eat Lead is also disappointing, as it’s really more of cliché celebration than an attempt to take cliché-ridden games down a peg. As I’ve observed in the past, it’s frustrating that video games—above all other media—seem to be so afraid to present humor that’s truly complex and subversive; and, had Matt Hazard aimed its comedic sights a little higher, the lousiness of the game itself might be excusable on some level. But in the end, we’re left with nothing but an unfunny mess that could have went amazing places with its premise.

Grade: D

Previous Reviews:

The 61FPS Review - Dead Rising: Chop Til You Drop (Wii)
The 61FPS Review: Resident Evil 5
The 61FPS Review: Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride

Whatcha Playing: Dead or Alive Xtreme 2

Joe Keiser — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:00:00 GMT

When I tell you that I am playing Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 I know that the first thing you think of is “there’s only one reason to play that game in 2009.” But it’s not what you think, honest. Yes, it’s an archaic collect-a-thon that was excoriated by the press for a variety of reasons both just and unjust. But the Xtreme series actually does manipulate the player in fascinating ways. Xtreme 2’s failure to appeal also speaks to the failure of some modern gaming conventions, and specifically suggests that maybe Achievements shouldn’t be mandatory on every title under the sun. If we can all disregard the nauseating breast physics for a second (and I understand this is very, very difficult) I’ll try to explain.

I’ve always held that the Xtreme games are actually doing something insidious behind all of the cheesecake and ridiculously proportioned girls. Yes, they try to appeal to the part of the male brain stem that will always be twelve years old. But when this testosterone-filled player actually starts playing the game it actually goes the other way. This is not a game where you just ogle women, it’s a game that makes young men carefully consider the fashion implications of a new floral hat. It’s a game that forces the player to think about at nearly all times their relationships with everyone else on the island, and how to nurture those relationships by understanding the wishes of others. This is effectively boys playing with Barbie, a project that uses the prospect of bikini-clad women as a carrot while it does the work of feminizing the player. It is a great trick, and I bow to Itagaki for perpetrating it so successfully.

Unfortunately, I think the smoke and mirrors Team Ninja employed to such great success in the first Xtreme were a reason for Xtreme 2’s failure. Most people did not see Xtreme 2 as an elaborate mind game. They saw it as a guilty pleasure. A really guilty pleasure. A pleasure so guilty that maybe they didn’t want it to be broadcast to their friends/co-workers/family that they were playing it for hours a day. This desire runs pretty contrary to the basic feature set of Xbox Live, and is exactly the reason it took me two years to chip away at my shame and finally put it in my console.

But it gets worse. The achievements in DOAX2 do not have that nice pro/con dichotomy most achievements share, that feeling of pride mixed with just a twist of shame. It’s all shame in DOAX2. Every achievement is related to buying swimsuits, with even the easiest ones requiring a pathological devotion to voyeurism. By the time you’re getting to the mid difficulty achievements, Itagaki’s joke has not only been lost on you but has revealed a latent mental illness. And then Xbox Live broadcasts it to the world.

As a result, I’ve been playing the game in fear of getting an achievement accidentally, and what that might say about me to my Live friend’s list. Now I do like achievements, and I think their ubiquity in 360 games has value. But it also creates a layer of structure that isn’t appropriate for all games. What if something like Shadow of the Colossus gave your achievement points for every colossus you felled? Wouldn’t that kind of positive stimulus weaken that game’s intent?

Related Links:

Team Ninja’s Post-Itagaki Future
Where Will You Go, Tecmo? What Will Happen to Our Love?
The 61FPS Review: Ninja Gaiden 2 Part 2

Recession Gaming Deals: The 360 Arcade Pack-In

Bob Mackey — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 18:30:00 GMT

If you're anything like me, you probably don't have a lot of extra money to spend on entertainment. But the savvy among us know that it's not necessary to spend the standard $59.99 retail price of a new game to have fun. Everything from Steam's weekend deals to console digital download services prove that you don't have to go into debt to waste away a few afternoons. But sometimes, cutting out the middleman isn't always involved in finding amazing gaming deals; cheapskates are often welcome in the wonderful world of brick and mortar retail, as long as no one knows how truly poor we are.

Of course, I'm always looking to help fellow members of the lower-lower-class get their hands on some video games, which is exactly the point of this post. While browsing at my local non-GameStop retailer today (they exist), I stumbled upon quite a steal: a used copy of the compilation pack-in Microsoft's been bundling with their Arcade units. For only eight (!) dollars, I walked away with Sega Superstars Tennis, Pac-Man Championship Edition, Uno, Luxor 2, Feeding Frenzy, and Boom-Boom Rocket. Granted, some of these games are mediocre at best, but for a little more than a buck a piece, you really can't find a better deal. Check out your local GameStop or other used game store; this pack-in shouldn't cost you more than ten bucks.

Related Links:

How the Recession Will End the Wii’s Torrent of Sewage
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EA says, "Recession actually a good thing"

My Name is Joe, and I have a Metagaming Problem.

Joe Keiser — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 19:00:00 GMT

I’ve been bouncing around my backlog lately, and it’s become problematic. This is not because of the backlog itself, though I will not lie: my backlog is dark and deep, a German forest in the middle of the night. By the time you get to 2004 you can no longer see sunlight. By the time you get to 1995 there is no way out, your breadcrumb trail having been eaten by PlayStation launch titles. You will be scared and alone, having no choice but to turn to torturing analogies for comfort.

My point, and I think I have one, is that pulling games out of my archive requires some kind of path, some kind of genre or theme like “games with robots in” or “games by that one developer I like to pretend is my friend”. So I’ve chosen a path.

It is Achievement Points. And it is ruining everything.

I think Achievement Points are fascinating. I like how they measure my progress in 360 games, sure. But I really enjoy how they have represent both a positive and negative worth, how great it feels to see that score so high until you remember how many of those points were gained by pretending to ride a bicycle in a circle for hours. The higher your score, the better and worse you feel! It’s brilliant. And I wanted more of them.

But the journey they’re taking me on, I’m not sure I like. I just finished a playthrough of Devil May Cry 4, on Human mode because I am a wuss. It took like ten hours, and at the end the game gave me like five achievement points, a bottle cap, and the most condescending achievement titles I have ever seen. This upset me, and I was even more upset when I looked up the good achievements and found that to get them, I had to turn myself into an unblinking Devil May Cry genius, attaining mastery in its rainbow of impossible difficulty settings. Before reading this, I was planning on playing through it again. After reading it, I threw the game aside in disgust.

And then I remembered that DMC4 is actually pretty fun—it’s no great shakes one way or the other, but it’s pretty and flamboyant and racking up a huge style combo is really very satisfying. I realized as I carefully removed Overlord from the Jenga pile that Achievement Points were destroying me. I didn’t really want to play Overlord, I really wanted to play more Devil May Cry 4. And actually I really wanted to play Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition, except I didn’t because it didn’t have Achievement Points.

Clearly, what started as a way to find something weird and new to play has become a big problem. I understand that and am working on a solution. Right after I finish up Overlord.

Related Links:

My Life as a Red Ring Statistic
GameTrailers' Top 10 Most Difficult Games
Bayonetta: Not As Gratuitous As You Think

The 61FPS Review: Star Ocean The Last Hope

Joe Keiser — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 22:00:00 GMT

Star Ocean 4 is a tragic creature. It’s not a great game, nor can it even see greatness from where it is now. Instead, it feels like it was dragged, kicking and clawing, away from greatness by wicked beasts that feed only on the worst excesses of Japanese pop storytelling.

So its story is almost unfathomably bad. Here is one Edge Maverick, who goes against what his parents wanted for him by being neither edgy or a maverick. Born on a post-apocalyptic earth, he is but a cog in the government division tasked with finding a new home world for the remainder of humanity. A coincidental calamity sees him promoted to captain of his own ship, with his mission clear: mankind is choking on fallout, so go find a new planet for them. Preferably one without giant man-murdering insects.

He immediately loses the plot. Long before he finds himself embroiled in a conflict for the fate of the universe, Edge is compiling his ragtag team of horrifying cosplay clichés: there’s a winged girl in there, and an embarrassingly clad catgirl, and at least two different varieties of space elf. He takes this merry band of awfully voice-acted annoyances across a series of nearly non-sequitur adventures, none of which have anything to do with colonizing the galaxy. Perhaps because he has confused being the universe’s most incompetent space captain with being a maverick, he messes up nearly all of these missions, which apparently excuses him to spend hours and hours as a mopey drama queen.

Eventually we do get to the battle for all life, and things get even worse. It’s a turn of events that gets all of the actors talking incessantly about “evolution,” except none of them know what “evolution” is, giving it at least three different definitions but using them interchangeably, to the point where it’s no longer clear what the main villain is doing or what anyone should learn from any of it. So it’s no surprise when all the characters take the wrong lesson away at the end, though it is hilarious.

This complete mess is relayed in a never-ending barrage of excruciating cutscenes, but the real tragedy of Star Ocean: The Last Hope isn’t that it’s a terrible game with a terrible, terribly acted plot. It’s actually quite a good game with a terrible, terribly acted plot. From a technical perspective this is about as good as the JRPG has ever gotten—Tri-Ace’s lovely engine pumps out some lush and colorful vistas while keeping framerates high and load times nearly nonexistent. The super-fast realtime battle system balances chaos and twitch with an incredible amount of tactical depth. The difficulty curve forces you to learn all of its many nuances, so by the end of the game you’ll be juggling quick attack chains with methodical menu-based magic, mixing fully aggressive attacks with slower but more damaging blindside attacks, and switching characters in and out of the party while switching which character is under manual control. There’s even a customizable bonus board, which rewards certain battle actions like critical hits with percentage increases to things like experience and gold acquisition. And the increase persists from battle to battle until you take a critical hit yourself, adding a level of tension to the affair.

This battle system is well integrated into the game’s other subsystems, which include character growth, item creation and data collection. These systems are for the most part well implemented. Character development is primarily handled through the enhancements of skills via scarce skill points, forcing the player to often make difficult decisions about who needs to be better at what right now. Item creation is based on a tangled web of dozens of collectible doodads, with item recipe discovery based primarily on character skills. The data collecting element rewards battling enemies with increased enemy info—battle a specific type of creature enough and you’ll be able to capture their essence into an accessory, providing stat gains based on the nature of that creature. There’re a huge number of interlocking gears for the maximal player to keep in mind, which is good. It’s interesting. And the reward for playing long and well isn’t just better characters and loot, there’s also a wealth of contextual information to read through.

This is all well and good, but Star Ocean: The Last Hope is designed in a way that minimizes its strengths. Combat is fun, but dungeons are long and strenuous affairs with architecture often repeating and save points spread far apart. The sheer number of battles will begin to grate, and then you’re rewarded with…another shrill, nonsensical cutscene.

The reason I spent the beginning of this review on the game’s story is because Star Ocean: The Last Hope is an incredible case. It’s fun, on several levels. But here fun is not enough, because the game’s universe is simply a place that you do not want to visit. If you watch the cinemas and leave on the voice-acting it’s like going to Disneyland except you have to ride the teacups for hours at a time and it’s “Douchebags Get In Free Day”. Turn all of that off (and there are a wealth of options to do that, including turning off character voice individually) and it becomes an empty, more joyless sort of fun.

I requested the review for this game having not played a Star Ocean before because it was made clear to me that Star Ocean: The Last Hope, being a prequel, would be a good way for a JRPG fan to jump into the series. Unless you can watch all of the embedded cutscenes in this review without wincing, I would recommend you do not follow my lead.

Rating: C-

Past Reviews:

Killzone 2
Noby Noby Boy - part 1 & part 2
Big Bang Mini
Retro Game Challenge
Edge
Game & Watch Collection
Valkyria Chronicles part 1 & part 2
Karaoke Revolution Presents American Idol Encore 2
Prince of Persia
LittleBigPlanet part 1, part 2
Dead Space
LOL
Dragon Quest IV
Ninja Gaidan 2 part 1 & part 2
Metal Gear Solid 4 part 1 & part 2
Wii Fit
Grand Theft Auto IV part 1, part 2 & part 3

The One Thing Games Should Take From Star Ocean: The Last Hope

Joe Keiser — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 21:00:00 GMT

Perhaps you recall that one cutscene that was posted here a week ago from Star Ocean: The Last Hope. It was a beastly thing from the darkest depths of the uncanny valley, writhing grotesquely in vibrant 720p. Well, it’s even worse in English—I have embedded that version after the jump, and if you think that I did that because I hate you that is completely fair.

I’m playing the game for a forthcoming 61FPS Review, and thirty hours in the good news is that so far this wins the battle for the “Worst Cutscene in Star Ocean: The Last Hope Award”. The bad news is that the battle for that award is titanic in scale—this game is packed densely with cutscenes, many of them twenty minutes long., and eventually they all combine into a single Lovecraftian horror of wild gesticulation and ear-wrenching voice acting. The producer of the game recently talked about games surpassing film as a storytelling medium. I hope he was speaking in general terms, because his team sure can’t do it alone.

I’m off topic. “Make sure your cutscenes are consistent in their ability to cause pain” is not the lesson the industry should take from Star Ocean: The Last Hope. Instead, it’s the elegant way the game lets you skip them.

It’s just a little thing, really, but I’m completely amazed I’ve never seen its like before. See, you can skip the cutscenes in The Last Hope. But instead of just leaving you adrift without a story compass like way too many games do, this one replaces the scene with a paragraph of summarization as to what you just chose to miss. As the parts of the game that you don’t watch can actually be rather pleasant, this is the kind of boon I wish I had known about, oh, thirty hours ago (though I’ll still be watching them, actually: due diligence and all that).

I don’t know if Star Ocean: The Last Hope is the first game to do this. It’s a simple idea, so I can’t imagine it is. That’s not what I’m really talking about here. What I am saying is that, for games where story doesn’t want to be there but for some reason has to be (and Star Ocean: The Last Hope is very much one of those games), there’s no reason to not do this. So why isn’t everyone doing it?

Related Links:

Star Ocean: The Last Hope Is Creepy as Hell
Your JRPG Narrative is Bad and You Should Feel Bad
JRPG Stories: Awful

Pools of Sorrow, Waves of Joy--The Beatles: Rock Band Priced and Dated

Joe Keiser — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 19:00:00 GMT

MTV Games and Harmonix have dropped a handful of details on The Beatles: Rock Band, which is the official name of that Beatles game that was announced last October. Key among those details was the fact that it would be called The Beatles: Rock Band. That certainly doesn’t sound like the “new, full-grown, custom game built from the ground up” that was mentioned back then, but I’ve spent the months since that announcement dreaming of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club RTS so it’s possible that my disappointment is not exactly, um, sane.

I’ll get my other crazy compliant out of the way now, too: the release is scheduled for 09/09/09, which is cute and all but totally conflicts with the Decade of Dreamcast blowout party I have been planning in my mind since, oh, January 1st 2009. But maybe that is just the ship date and everything will be fine!

Yeah, I’m actually pretty happy about this. All I really wanted was a Beatles Rock Band track pack (I was actually disappointed when there was a chance this wouldn’t be just that) so the fact that this is at least that is great news. If they throw in some Yellow Submarine-style animation in the background, well, who could complain, but it strikes me that there’s still going to be more to The Beatles: Rock Band than was announced today.

For the record, here’s the rest of what was announced today:

It will be compatible with all Rock Band instruments certainly, and more than likely all Rock Band-compatible instruments as well
It will be $60 on PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii—that’s pricey, for Wii
If you really need new instrument controllers, you’ll be able to get them, and they’ll be modeled after real instruments used by The Fab Four. But be prepared to pay out the nose for them: standalone guitars will cost $100. That's really pricey, for everyone, but at least they're not necessary.
There’s a premium bundle too, which will go for $250. It hasn’t been specified what that will get you.

Click here for the horse’s mouth.

Related Links:

Now That Harmonix Has The Beatles, What Should a Fab Four Game Even Be?
The Magical Mystery Tour is Coming to Take You Away
Rock Band Takes a Step in the Right Direction

Jerking Your Fans Around

Amber Ahlborn — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Console exclusivity; to gain sole rights to that singular game with hopes for drawing in the crowds. Game and franchise exclusives have been part of the strategy to gain fan following since the first video game machines began competing. In the early days, consoles had pretty distinct catalogs. It was easy to determine what games would appear on what systems and pick where to spend your dollars. These days almost everything not developed by a first or second party is cross platform (for the moment, we will be ignoring the Wii which plays by its own rules). However, don't think for a moment that exclusivity is a thing of the past, it has merely evolved into a new, sinister form.

Made possible in an age of downloadable content; extra levels, costumes, and other goodies are becoming the new system exclusives. An example of this trend was pointed out in a blog post by Zachary Miller. People who bought Tomb Raider: Underworld for the Xbox 360 are getting all sorts of new content while gamers who bought it for the PS3 are getting the shaft. In my opinion, this is a terrible way to treat your fans.

When games are exclusive to a system, or even when different versions of a game with unique content are made console specific (see Soul Calibur II as an example), fans know up front what they are getting and can make choices on which system to buy for which game. Downloadable content, however, is something that tends to come down the pipes later on, long after the game itself has been purchased. If downloadable content becomes the new console exclusive, consumers can't make informed choices about what version of a game to buy because not all of the information is available up front. One group or the other is going to end up punished for buying the game for the “wrong” system, and that's really not cool.

Related Links:

Millions of Disappointing Tomb Raider Sales for Eidos

The Uncanny Valley: Tomb Raider and Lara Croft Are Starting to Freak Me Out

Pitying Lara, or How to Make a Million Seller and Still Get Fired

Virtual-On and On: Oratorio Tangram Resurrected on Xbox Live Arcade

John Constantine — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 22:30:00 GMT

I’m not sure that the videogame fan’s fetish for promotional and limited edition hardware is much of a problem. Most people just love having stuff. Some folks are into shoes. I’m not talking about people who hang out at Footlocker waiting for a fresh shipment of Lebron Signatures. I mean there’s a whole freaky subculture of people who collect and buy custom made sneakers designed by graffiti artists. They spend thousands of dollars on pairs of sneakers. Sneakers they already have. Those sneakers look different than their other sneakers. The things you learn watching Entourage, I tell you…

The gamer’s most disturbing predilection is his unceasing devotion to brand. Nothing gets our blood going like the latest sequel, remake, or re-release. It isn’t just nostalgia, that ready scapegoat for franchise excitement. The iterative nature of game design (and business) has simply made us gluttons for the familiar. We are addicts for the names we know being followed by ever increasing numerals and for the inevitable resurrection of classic milieus.

I’m feeling particularly guilty about it today. When it came out last night that Sega’s Virtual-On Oratorio Tangram was getting re-released on Xbox Live Arcade I damn near wet my pants. I’m a sucker, what can I say.

Virtual-On, so ya know, is a game that has you controlling angular, bi-pedal robots in single combat. These fights take place in large arenas, allowing you to run, leap, shoot, stab and strafe at high speeds. Your goal is to make another robot blow up. Discerning 61FPS readers may recall my writing a surreal devotional to Sega’s robot fighting game just a few weeks back, so the announcement that the series definitive arcade entry, Oratorio Tangram v.5.66, is coming home made me doubly giddy. There isn’t much to report. It isn’t confirmed the XBLA version will even release outside of Japan and it’s guaranteed Sega won’t be making a new twin-stick controller just to accommodate rabid devotees. Who cares though?! HD ORATORIO TANGRAM!

(Much love to duckroll for letting US citizens know about Weekly Famitsu’s latest news)

Related Links:

Screen Test: Battle Rage
This is the Reason Why Gamers Aren't Taken Seriously
The Mega Man Robot Club

Up All Night: X-Blades and the D-List Preservation Society

John Constantine — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT

“We need new pornos!” – “Spaghetti Western” by Primus

Les Claypool was right. We do need new pornos. We need new trashy entertainment that borders on the pornographic. It’s essential. No, seriously. Come back. For all my highfalutin talk about the creative potency of games, I relish those games that might be a little base. A little crass. Sometimes, those games are terrible. That’s a good thing.

I’ve been suffering a weird fascination with Gaijin Games’ X-Blades ever since it first popped up on Kotaku way back in November 2007, when it went by the name Oniblade. Its origins got me curious. There are hundreds of games out there that, even if you’re a rabid fanboy or a member of the press, you’ll never hear about. Korean MMOs, unlicensed Brazilian Genesis games, and, yes, weird action games from the Eastern Block; it’s impossible to follow everything. There’s just too much. So when something like X-Blades, some Russian paean to Japanese action games, pops its head far enough out of the ground you take notice. Especially when it’s coming out for consoles notorious for exorbitant development costs and marketing budgets.

What’s it like to actually play? It’s pretty terrible to be honest. X-Blades’ heritage as a PC game made on a budget shines through in long load times, complete with the sort of little spinning icon in the middle of the boot screen from the good ol’ days of Hexen. The camera sits right on protagonist Ayumi’s pantsless behind and it never bothers itself with following the action. When you move said camera to try and get a look at things that might be attacking you, it just stays wherever you leave it. The game controls well-enough, but it’s about as deep as your average SNES beat ‘em up. One button for every action and that’s that. X-Blades is more or less exactly what it looks like in that old trailer: a bootleg. A Trasnmorphers to your Transformers, if you will. And I love that it exists.

The Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 don’t see a whole lot of games like X-Blades. That’s not to say that they don’t have their fair share of bad games. They have those in spades. What you don’t see, though, is D-List games. Games destined for the bargain bin, far from best-of and best-seller lists. They’re curios remembered by the scant few that played them. Not every game on a console needs to be budgeted with millions of dollars in the attempt to have the next platinum seller. This is the difference between, say, Sega’s Golden Axe: Beast Rider and X-Blades. Both are action games starring women built for thirteen-year-old wank fantasies, but one of these games cost far more to make than the other. Just because you’re making a game for the highest end technology doesn’t mean that it has to utilize all of it. The low-development cost D-List game is a time-honored tradition in the medium. Where would we be without D3’s Simple 2000 series? We’d be in a world without Zombies vs. Ambulances, that’s where.

61 Frames Per Second salutes you, X-Blades. We salute Onechanbara: Bikini Zombie Slayers. Hell, we salute Ninjabread Man on Wii. We salute the D-List. You may be terrible games, but we love you just the way you are. You are why Up All Night exists.

Related links:

Up All Night: Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe
Up All Night: Doritos Dash of Destruction
Up All Night: Blackthorne
Up All Night With Jaleco: Never the Best, But Never Forgotten
X-Blades and the Cultural Uncanny Valley

This is the Reason Why Gamers Aren't Taken Seriously

Cole Stryker — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 21:00:00 GMT

Did this image excite you? Well you're the reason why gamers lack cultural legitimacy.

Just joking. There are many more reasons why gamers are looked down on, but our fetishization of collectables, skins, and assorted promotional hardware is one thing that sets us apart. Who cares about the color of a console?

Sure, every hobby has its obsessive collectors, but I don't think there exists a pastime that elicits such widespread chatter when a new peripheral, add-on, skin, or promotional input device is released. I think this is partially due to the phenomenon that video games exist where art and technology meet. You can find plenty of film buffs who couldn't give a rip if their watching a film on 1080p, but technology has a much more direct impact on the consumer experience with video games.

A real step will have been made when gamers stop caring about hardware and branding and can focus entirely on what happens on-screen. Probably won't happen for a long time, but by golly it would usher in a golden age.

(insert obligatory joke about how it will match the RRoD better)

The Original XBox: The New Sega Saturn?

The Portable Xbox 360 and Hand Warmer

Where Is SSX?

John Constantine — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 00:30:00 GMT

Let me ask you a question, EA Canada: must it all be so gosh darned realistic these days? I’ve played Skate and Skate 2. Cool games. Cool games that helpfully reinforce, digitally, that my brain is not ready to take up skateboarding. The sheer amount of things I need to take into consideration whilst performing a simple trick in Skate terrifies me. If I tried to do this in real life, and I had to think about all the different things I was asking of my body, a plank of wood, some wheels, and gravity, I would experience complete ego disintegration right before rupturing my testicles on a railing in some public park. Why oh why can’t you take me back to the good ol’ days of extreme-with-a-capital-TREME sports, EA Canada. Why can we not head back to the mountain for some good times with a new SSX, the awesomest fake snowboarding game of all time?

SSX 4 showed up on a few release lists back at the end of 2006, right around the time that the Xbox 360 was ending its first year and just before the release of the Playstation 3. These were the systems said to be home for such a wonderful sequel. Alas, that game was never ever officially announced and has failed to materialize since. A sort of remix of SSX 3, SSX: Blur, came out for Wii in March 2007 and it remains the single most frustrating game I have played in my entire life. They added some new cel-shaded graphics and motion controls that give a shockingly real simulation of a crippled nervous system. You move following onscreen prompts and then NOTHING HAPPENS. Playing it is demoralizing and makes you hate things. Even your pets. After trying to play SSX: Blur for an hour, I ended up yelling at my cat and blaming her for the hantavirus.

DJ Atomika, the chipper voice of SSX Radio throughout the game, re-emerged in Criterion’s Burnout Paradise and hinted at some fresh snow on the mountain. Please don’t lie to me, Atomika. My heart couldn’t take it. I long for sweet, sweet fake snowboarding on 360 and PS3. Grant me this simple desire.

(Much love to NeoGAFfer Wario 64 for asking this very same question. Props.)

Where Is?

The PSP
Hydrophobia
Prototype
Shuichi Sakurazaki, Creator of Ninja Gaiden
Yasunori Mitsuda

Rite of Spring: Flower and What’s Lacking in the Romantic Games Movement

John Constantine — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 02:00:00 GMT

Last week was full of everything you want out of a vacation: a change of setting from urban sprawl to glorious mountain range, rancid air exchanged for clean winter wind, great food, better scotch, and the best company. Of course, there was also a smorgasbord of great portable games. Retro Game Challenge, Atlus’ under-the-radar curiosity My World, My Way, and Kirby Super Star Ultra made for marvelous palette cleansers, washing away the last traces of Epic Holiday Gaming morsels still stuck between my gaming teeth. It was restful, brief, and rejuvenating. When I returned, I knew that it was going to be time for 2009 hardcore gaming to go into high gear what with Street Fighter IV and a Killzone 2 demo waiting, but the first thing I had to spend some time with was Flower. As soon as it had finished installing, well, it felt like my vacation had just gotten an extension.

The game is exhilarating. Having grown up in rural upstate New York, the contrast of Flower’s city-bound preludes and its soaring bucolic playgrounds pulls at very specific heartstrings in me. The game is brief but I’m no less taken with it. Jenova Chen and ThatGameCompany are damn good at eliciting just this sort of emotional response with their games. Their debut Cloud was rich with the same bittersweet catharsis that characterizes Flower. Both are something like the game equivalent of a symphonic poem, their fluid flight-based gameplay replacing music as the visceral informant of a visual/audio narrative. They’re games unified in subject too; Cloud and Flower chronicle escapes to a pure, natural world from metropolitan confinement. They are concerned with beauty and simplicity.

I wouldn’t say that Chen and TGC started it, but they’re certainly poster children for what appears to be a burgeoning romantic movement in game design. As much as Jon Blow’s Braid was a commentary on play conventions, it was also a deliberately lyrical game. Trading in pastoral visuals and acoustics to inform its tale of romantic loss and redemption, it shares more than a little with Flower and Cloud. I’m wondering, though, why these new romantics have yet to explore more emotionally troubling and challenging themes. Gamers and critics are constantly citing “dark” themes as a mark of credibility in mainstream game design, but the darkness they refer to is usually tied up in angst driven narrative and violence. Where are the games that are legitimately dark, games that don’t just gain their emotional thrust from beauty or human ugliness? Braid’s ambiguous conclusion and TGC’s exploration of predatory natural selection, Flow, flirt with ugliness and dissonance but never make them their focus. (Flow’s poetic prescript “…life could be simple…” limits the game’s reach from the start.) But why can’t the lyrical style and play of these games be applied to subject matter like Procedural Arts’ Façade, a game that places you directly into a married couple’s complete relationship breakdown?

I’m excited by these creator’s efforts and, yes, moved by them. I was caught up in Flower from the start. But I am anxious and thirsty for the romantic games’ movement to find its Stravinsky, that artist who asks me to look at and hear and play something I’d rather not to make their work that much more powerful.

Related links:

Flower - A Zen de Blob?
Indie Dev Moment: Dyson
Far Out, Man
Ceci N'Est Pas Une 1-Up: The Surrealist Future of Postpunk Gaming

The Console Wars Made Adorable

Nadia Oxford — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 00:50:00 GMT

Everyone gets embroiled in a console war once in a while. We have some kind of inborn instinct that causes us to rush to the defence of our beloved consoles as if they were a damsel cornered by a dragon. It's interesting to wonder what system-associated developers like Miyamoto think about such behaviour. “What, do you people have deep-rooted problems revolving around peer approval or something?”

When you think about how silly the console wars ultimately are, you really do have to duck your head in shame for participating (shortly before you go back and do it all over again). Or, sometimes, you might receive another reminder of how easily we can all get along if we just try. For instance, through an art project.

A board member on IGN has put together a small group of sketches titled, “The Console War is Officially Over.” The adorable pictures feature the major game consoles (and their young portable siblings) in various states of play.

(Those bedsheets should be burning merry hell.)

It's a heart-melting group of pics. It makes me feel really bad for ever fitting my Xbox 360 with sharp spurs and sending it after the PS3. They don't want to fight. They want to love. I vow to be a better console owner from now on.

(PSP, moar like Pee-ass-pee, lol)

Related Links:

Roundtable Discussion: Where Is the Handheld Version of the Console Wars?
Sign of the Times: Current Gen to Stick Around a Little Longer
Microsoft's New Year's Resolution

Whatcha Playing: Far Cry 2

Joe Keiser — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 16:00:00 GMT

I know, I know. This is a week of enormous wallet-destroying power, and I should probably be playing Street Fighter IV or something. I’m saving myself for tonight’s release of Noby Noby Boy, actually, but in the meantime I’ll be enjoying something a little bit more mainstream. Surely you won’t deny me the pleasure.

And besides, Far Cry 2 is about the best the industry is currently offering to the typical testosterone-filled gaming male at the moment. It’s a confident and meticulously designed work that is happy to eschew the status quo for a better way. Here’s why I think Far Cry 2 is the future of the shooter.*

*: Note that I am talking about the single player elements of first-person shooters only. The internet would have you believe that most people play their shooters online these days. This is a lie. The internet is where people play online shooters, so it’s not exactly an unbiased sample.

Almost every major single FPS built in the last decade is based on the scripted linear rollercoaster design of Half-Life. By my estimate this style of game played itself out in, oh, 2007 or so. It will probably take the industry another five years to realize this. Far Cry 2 realizes this right now (okay, four months ago) and finds a strong solution in open-world design.

Open-world shooters, like everything under the sun, aren’t new. 2007’s S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl nailed down a great formula for the genre, and 2001’s Operation Flashpoint also played with option-filled environments and non-linear mission structure. The legacy almost certainly goes back further, but Far Cry 2 is the first one that ranks as anything more than a fringe success and really paves a way forward for the genre.

It’s not a sandbox game. Instead of giving the player a great variety of things to do, Far Cry 2 relies on the visceral nature of handling weapons from a first-person viewpoint to keep the player involved: it’s actually a purer shooter than STALKER, which also had an ever-present inventory management system. Far Cry 2 does know one thing that STALKER also knew, however: that the best way to keep an open world interesting is not to fill it with varied activity, but to make the world itself cohesive and believable, with a long and relevant history and a real sense of place. Build a place players actually want to explore, and you barely need anything else.

Which isn’t to say it’s easy to give a player that, but Far Cry 2 manages it. The fictional African nation it takes place in feels endlessly exotic or ugly, lived in or untouched—every part of it gives you a sense of being in a real place. The game draws a linear story through this vast world, but experiencing it as a player is a more meandering experience as the war or your radar pulls you off the road and towards your next genuinely valuable conflict diamond. It feels completely different from and far fresher than something in the Half-Life vein, where you walk down a corridor while an action movie plays out around you.

Related Links:

Free Radical is Safe, but Haze is Still Bad
F.E.A.R. 2 and Crafting the Bigger Sequel That’s Actually Better
Half-Life 2: A Dystopian Comedy

Ghostbusters: There Are No Words For How Good Bustin' Makes Me Feel

John Constantine — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 23:30:00 GMT

Guest contributor Adam Rosenberg resides in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, where he slaves away daily as a contributing editor for UGO’s Gamesblog as his dog Loki looks on in bewilderment. In addition to the noble pursuit of video games, Adam enjoys spending time with fine film, finer food and his fine fiancée Bekah.

I haven’t seen shit that will turn you white. The shit I have seen, namely a fresh build of Ghostbusters: The Video Game for Xbox 360 and PS3, will make you green. With slime. And envy.

Last summer, a preview build featuring a portion of the widely seen New York Public Library level made the gaming press rounds. The unfinished code appeared out of thin air, its sender listed only as “Evil PR Monkey”. The demo was raw. Very raw. But not so raw as to diminish Ghostbusters’s promise. There were Ray Stantz, Egon Spengler and Winston Zeddmore (noVenkman in the demo), fully voiced by Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson. Aykroyd and Ramis’ script, even just that tiny chunk, was characterized by the same wit that made the original films such classics. Then a few weeks later, Activision announced that, following their merger with Vivendi, they would not be hanging onto the Ghostbusters license.

News on the game since, even following Atari’s confirmation that they would be publishing Ghostbusters in June 2009, has been disturbingly light. No more of the actual game has been shown since that messy preview code. Until last week. While I didn’t actually get to go hands-on with it, I did get an eyes-on playthrough of the remainder of that library level. And now… well… I ain’t afraid of no Ghostbusters.

The presentation — third-person perspective, story, voice actor/likeness participation, core ghost-wranglin’ mechanics — are unchanged. What’s fresh is a new sprint button and a multi-directional quick dodge. Both significantly tighten up the gameplay. If you haven’t gotten a look at any video of play, there are two types of spooks and specters to combat.

First are capturable Ghosts, boss and mini-boss-style baddies. You wear them down with the Proton Beam — Or another weapon. More on those in a sec. — and then snare them in a Capture Beam. The captured ghost has to be slammed into walls until it is weak enough to be pulled into a trap. Then there are the more common Entities, supernatural conglomerations of physical objects, such as books, papers, lamps, and the like. These spirits can be flat-out destroyed (or is that neutronized?). They typically have shields that must be stripped away before they can be taken down. Still others manifest as hulking beasts; these must be worn down with sustained attacks until their head – glowing lamps, during the library demo – can be ripped away with the Capture Beam.

That’s the talent, so what about the tools? Weapons stem from the Proton Pack which, along with a dangling PKE Meter, serves as your HUD. The pack itself changes appearance depending on the beam type in use, and each beam now features primary and alternate modes of fire. The vanilla Proton beam is supplemented by the Boson Dart, a concentrated burst shot which works like a rocket launcher. The newly introduced Dark Matter Beam fires either a damaging shotgun-like spread or a sustained stasis beam which has the effect of slowing down targeted enemies. There’s also a Slime Blower, which is used to clear away dark, red-tinged slime. No “Higher and Higher” to accompany it though. Throughout the game, you can upgrade the ‘busters’ equipment with money earned from capturing ghosts and collateral damage. The bill for the latter goes to one Walter Peck, by the way. It’s true what you’ve heard about his genitalia. Just saying. The demo ends with a knockdown boss fight against a familiar supernatural librarian. Cornered in a cavernous space tucked away in a distant corner of the NYPL’s sub-basements, the librarian ghost mounts a final offensive from behind her shield of floating books and candelabras. After finishing her off, the team moves to investigate a trans-dimensional portal which has appeared in the center of the room. The walls peel away to reveal a hellish landscape and… the pause menu pops up. Demo over. A good portion of the game will send the Ghostbusters hurtling into these Otherworlds, though the “what” and the “why” of them remain a mystery for now.

It’s clear that Atari is giving Ghostbusters: The Video Game the triple-A attention it deserves. The publisher switch has resulted in remastered FMVs, newly written and recorded lines of dialogue, additional mo-cap work, and an apparent tightening of the gameplay. Plus, even though it wasn’t shown, I was told off-duty Ghostbusters will be able to explore the team’s iconic firehouse. No concrete details were shared, but I was promised that “rewards” await those who take the time to explore. As long as we can use the pole, all is good. The mid-June release date is creeping ever-closer, and I have to it’s very exciting to see this polish applied to Ray, Egon, Peter, Winston and Nameless New Guy’s (i.e. You) HD-console adventure.

Related links:

NYCC 2009 - Ghostbusters Wii
Screen Test: Ghostbusters
Films to Games: Ghostbusters Really is Ghostbusters 3!
Ghostbusters. Peter Venkman. Walter Peck. The World is Just.

Fez May Finally Be More Than a Totally Sweet Demo

John Constantine — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT

For awhile there back in 2007, it was looking like blending 2D and 3D in a single game was going to be a bonafide trend. Super Paper Mario was the highest profile experiment in dimensional puzzle solving, but it was Zoe Mode’s overlooked Crush that really demonstrated the lasting potential of the new genre. Shifting the levels between sidescrolling, overhead 2D, and full 3D made for some inspired level design and hair-pullingly difficult puzzles. When the Independent Games Festival rolled around at the beginning of 2008, it looked like the 2D-3D mash-up was finally going to have its masterpiece in Polytron’s Fez. Fez mixed the same sort environment manipulation from Crush with deliciously retro graphics and sound. It looked awesome. Then it disappeared. I was sad.

Gaming gods be praised! Fez re-emerged, like a glorious sleepy groundhog signalling an early spring of sunshine and raw joy! Polytron posted up a new screen on their homepage. As you can see, something wonderful is about to be happy and it sounds like that something wonderful is a release announcement. Not only that, but the conspicuous green A button in the message seems to indicate that Fez will be hitting Xbox Live Arcade. Nothing’s confirmed yet, but this is swell news.

I must have you and your delightful 2D-3D wares, Fez.

(Link: Infinite Lives)

Related links:

Indie Dev Moment: Gravity Bone
Indie Dev Moment: Hunted Forever
Indie Dev Moment: Virtual Silence and the Art of Discomfort
Indie Dev Moment: The Glory of Thunder Lizards, Speed, and Extinction

The Five Characters You Won’t See in Street Fighter IV

John Constantine — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 22:00:00 GMT

Written by Cyriaque Lamar

On February 17th, a numerical Street Fighter sequel will come out in America for the first time in ten years. In an act of unprecedented video game democracy, the good folks at Capcom allowed fans to vote for the characters that would appear in the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 versions. Their shortlist included such perennial favorites as the panties-flashing Sakura and the leotard-clad M16 agent Cammy. As in the 2008 presidential election, sex appeal commanded the polls.

But what about those fighters who didn’t make the cut? Join me as I take a look at Street Fighter’s lesser-known pugilists and postulate why these lovable losers didn’t earn a silky-smooth 3D sheen.

Rolento

Who?
Rolento debuted as a boss in the 1989 arcade beat-em-up Final Fight. As a boss character, he was entitled to certain amenities players were not, such as a baton, incendiaries, and a subscription to the Ginsu-Of-The-Month Club. When he turned up in 1996’s Street Fighter Alpha 2, he returned with all of his thwacking, exploding, and stabbing habits intact.

Why He Should Have Been in SFIV
Rolento is an absolute hoot to play. For a game full of high-flying karate-men, it’s surprising that the most agile character is the guy with grenades strapped to his pectorals. Rolento’s moves include a wide array of flips, rolls, and the ability to use his baton as a pogo stick. Playing him is like playing a paramilitary spider monkey. Furthermore, his backstory is hilariously bad even by Street Fighter standards. As he puts it, Rolento aims to create a militaristic new world order free of “panty-waist politicking”.

Revolutionary rhetoric.

Why He Isn’t
We suspect his absence has something to do with all those unfair knives, grenades, and super moves involving trip wires and impaling opponents with crane hooks. The moment you bring a goddamn crane to fisticuffs is the moment you’ve left the realm of “street fighting” and gone headlong into “demolition derby” territory.

Sodom

Who?
Another expatriate from Final Fight, Sodom was the boss of the underground wrestling match in Level 2. Despite his menacing shogun attire and dual katanas, Sodom was easily thwarted if the player stood directly below him. He later appeared in 1995’s Street Fighter Alpha. Sodom proved to be a more formidable foe in this game, as players could only walk left and right.

Why He Should Have Been in SFIV
He’s the most meta character in the entire Street Fighter mythos. A white guy with an overweening respect for Japanese culture, Sodom fancies himself a modern samurai. He flaunts fans and writes in pidgin Kanji. Capcom seem to be making fun of American fans’ geekier proclivities. Hey gaijin, see this joker? He’s you. Go do some push-ups with Guile.

Dude, leave E. Honda alone. He’s above your nonsense.

Why He Isn’t
That name is best left in the past, don’t you think?

Oro

Who?
Oro is a Street Fighter III original. A hundred-plus-year-old hermit from the Amazon rain forest, Oro spent decades in solitude until he grew bored and entered the third World Warrior Tournament. Hey, after Rolento’s rationale, that’s as fine an excuse as any.

Why He Should Have Been in SFIV
Along with collecting AARP benefits out the ying-yang, Oro handicaps himself by tying his left arm to his chest. And he’s not fighting one-handed for laughs — Oro’s so tough that he could accidentally kill his opponent if he unloosed his other fist. He can also take a nap mid-fight, which is one of the best flip-offs in fighting game history.

Why He Isn’t
Although there’s nothing like schooling your opponent with a one-armed, half-comatose decagenarian, playing against Oro is a viscerally unsettling experience. Many of Oro’s moves are grapples, so you’ll spend most of the match getting groped by a greasy geriatric wearing nothing but a loincloth. Plus, he’s from Street Fighter III, and clearly SFIV producer Yoshinori Ono hates that game’s characters. Even if they’re awesome.

Twelve

Who?
Twelve is Necro’s nemesis in Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike. Necro’s special moves unabashedly mimick Blanka’s electricity and Dhalsim’s stretching. His antagonist needed even more novelty powers to be a formidable foe. So, naturally, he’s a crazy advanced version of Necro made by the Illuminati.

Why He Should Have Been in SFIV
Twelve was a Whitman’s Sampler of ridiculous gimmicks. Invisibility? Check. Flight? Check. Ability to become a doppelganger of your foe? Check. Ability to transform into a fighter jet? Double check. It’s like Capcom said, “The arcade industry’s in a freefall and this might be the last Street Fighter game we ever make. Fuck it, let’s pour all of the worst excesses of fighting games into one character and hit the karaoke bar.”

Why He Isn’t
For all his shtick, Twelve is perhaps the least playable character in the SF franchise. He can turn invisible, but the player has no idea where he is onscreen. He can turn his hands into pickaxes, but he’ll do almost no damage. Capcom balanced out Twelve’s bells and whistles by making him terrible. Street Fighter III rule also applies.

T. Hawk

Who?
He’s from Super Street Fighter II and possibly the worst caricature of Native Americans since Iron Eyes Cody. Hell, Capcom Japan wanted to name him “Geronimo” until Capcom USA intervened.

Why He Should Have Been in SFIV
T. Hawk is the only character on our list to make Capcom’s shortlist. So in theory, had anyone actually voted for him, he should have been in Street Fighter IV.

Why He Isn’t
Let’s ignore T. Hawk’s F-Troop routine for a moment to talk about his gameplay. In short, he combined Zangief’s complicated special moves, Sagat’s unwieldiness, and a sleeveless Canadian tuxedo. I have terrible childhood memories of selecting T. Hawk on our Super Nintendo versions of SSFII, only to have 5’5” Cammy knock the wind out of his longhouse.

Memories like that stick with you forever, so let’s hope SFIV’s new challengers don’t disappoint – check back in 10 years to see if we’re griping about “that goddamn Crimson Viper” by the time Street Fighter V hits the Xbox 1080, Zii, and Atari Jaguar 2.

Related links:

Street Fighter IV's Dress Rehearsal
Video Game-Grade Pretension: Not For Street Fighter?
Play Street Fighter in Youtube
Finally: Playing Street Fighter IV and Super Street Fighter II HD Remix With Seth Killian

Trailer Review: Demon’s Souls

John Constantine — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 22:00:00 GMT

From Software, you guys got some weird in your blood. Who in the hell makes console exclusives these days? Not only that, who in the hell makes exclusives for every console on the market? And who in the hell makes console exclusives that are spiritual successors to cult hits that were console exclusives in the previous generation? You guys, whew, you guys are nutty. You’re nutty nut bars and I love it.

It’s a big month for From Software. Just last week in Japan, they released Ninja Blade on Xbox 360. Ninja Blade is a third-person action game that is a modernization, in both tone and technology, of their Xbox-only franchise Otogi. Today, they released Demon’s Souls in the land of the rising sun. Demon’s Souls is the Playstation 3 version of From’s PS2 oddity King’s Field, a series of distinctly western RPGs full of the dungeon crawling and character customization Elder Scrolls fans go ga-ga over.

As you can see from this trailer, Demon’s Souls is a real odd duck.

The presentation is polished but by no means mindblowing and the same can be said of its art direction. It really doesn’t look like a product of the east or west, its RPG-tropes coming across as just… neutral. I have no idea what to make of it. There’s still no word on whether or not this one’s coming to the States. The Asia version of the game, though, has both full English voice acting and all English menus. I don’t know about y’all, but this one’s so strange I might just have to import it.

Previous Trailer Reviews:

Final Fantasy XIII Looks Disturbingly Interesting
Priston Tale II: The 2nd Enigma
King of the Fighters XII
Edge
Dante's Inferno
Star Wars: The Old Republic
Resident Evil 5

WAKA, WAKA: Pac-Man Championship Made Old School-er

John Constantine — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 00:30:00 GMT

I was a little sad last month when putting together my closing-yet-incomplete thoughts on the games of 2008. During those twelve glorious months, the majority of the games I played to completion were from 2007. (The way 2009’s going at this point, it looks like this year’s going to be just the same.) So when I was thinking of the games that sparked my brain the most last year, some were sadly excluded from mention. My game of the year for 2007 and probably the game I played the most in 2008? Pac-Man Championship Edition.

No, seriously. That game is pure. Its rules are perfect. Its challenge increases seamlessly along with your skill. Its presentation is a quiet symphony of graphical polish and dynamic sound that encourages as much focus in a player as it does tension. It’s iconic but it’s also a legitimate sequel, improving on one of videogames’ most fundamental forms of play without relying heavily on nostalgia as a hook. It’s better than Pac-Man and it’s better than Ms. Pac-Man.

Crap, I’m tearing up just thinking about it!

Siliconera posted up this NES-styled mock up of Pac-Man Championship Edition and it really emphasizes how vital the widescreen format is in making PMCE a sequel that enhances Pac-Man fundamentals.

Without widescreen, PMCE is broken. The scrolling effect compensating for the smaller screen blocks you from tracking the ghosts at any given time, preventing you from plotting your course as you tear around the map gunning for a high score and bigger ghost-point chains. Shame it isn’t a real game. I’d love to try it side by side with the original.

Related links:

Game Compilations: The Good, the Bad, and the Fugly
Yeah, But Is It Art?: Pac-Man Championship Edition
Burn Your Skin for Pac-Man
Ms. Pac-Man: Feminist Champion

Whatcha Playing: Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Again)

Nadia Oxford — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 04:06:00 GMT

I have a small stable of games I love returning to once in a while, and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is among them. I own the original Playstation version (the actual original: it lacks the flu-snot green bar that labels it a best-selling re-release) and the emulation that was packed with the PSP's Dracula X Chronicles. I've finished both multiple times, but I decided that wasn't enough, so I downloaded the game once more on XBLA. Having lost my original Playstation at the bottom our sock drawer something like five years ago, it's nice to play Symphony of the Night on a large screen once more. It'd be nice if the Achievements weren't lame, but eh, if wishes were horses, and all that.

Symphony of the Night is still firmly in the top quality tier of the Castlevania hierarchy, but aging gamers draw in vital nutrients through message board fights about whether or not an esteemed game still deserves its lofty status. Over the past handful of years, Symphony of the Night has ignited similar arguments. Is the game as brilliant as we remember it? Was the Inverted Castle a stroke of game design genius or a cheap trick to extend gameplay?

Konami's premiere “Metroidvania” was one of the first titles I purchased on the Playstation: it helped usher me over the turbulent change from my teenage years to my adult years, which came with the inevitable realisation that you can't always do what you want to do, but there is no one who can stop you from enjoying the things that make the transition a little easier.

I'm undeniably biased towards Symphony of the Night, so I'm useless in a debate about its place amongst gaming history. At the same time, I don't think anyone can deny how lovingly put together it is. Every time I play Symphony of the Night, I discover some new thing: a mouse scurrying, doves nesting in the crevices of the Outer Wall, or (as I discovered very recently) the fact you can kill a toad by throwing Holy Water on its tongue, which pleases me greatly.

And even if you still insist on crossing your arms and saying “A-bloo-bloo-bloo awkward item screen,” you will surely recall how quickly the gorgeous piano melody in Orlox's Quarters made your annoyance melt away.

I think of Symphony of the Night as an integral soldier in the last stand for console-based 2D adventures. Sony of America was desperate to leave video gaming's “kiddy” image back with the colourful sprites on the Super Nintendo, and the 32-bit era of platformers—which birthed some of the finest in the genre—would have suffered for it if the likes of Konami and Capcom hadn't engaged in justifiable blackmail by threatening to hold big-name 3D titles if Sony wouldn't America have Castlevania and Mega Man. Interestingly, Symphony of the Night is a dignified and mature game regardless of its “primitive” presentation. Religious symbolism abounds, something Japan tends to be very hit-or-miss about. But it's all in context and it even aged well: heraldic imagery, spectral priests who listen to confessions, pious ghosts who cross themselves, and even a beautiful, sun-lit cathedral decorated with an ornate cross.

Incidentally, I still think Dracula has chutzpah for building a fully-loaded cathedral in the middle of his castle. He's all like, “Take that, God!”

I'm aware of Symphony of the Night's flaws, not the least of which is some kind of mapping joke that makes it prohibitively difficult to explore 200.6% of Dracula's abode. Certain gaps in the map will only be filled by doing a strange dance that involves shifting into a wolf, then shifting back after jumping. But who needs the reward at the end? Empty-headed Maria chases after Alucard. So what--

Oh crap, getting 200.6% is one of the Achievements on the Xbox 360 version of the game, isn't it? Bugger.

Related Links:

Suffering Castlevania Fatigue
Watcha Playing: Castlevania - Portrait of Ruin
Castlevania: Cruse of the Stupid Red Headed Kid

At Least Batman: Arkham Asylum's Story Will Be Good

John Constantine — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 01:30:00 GMT

It’s been pretty disheartening to see so many people losing their game industry jobs these past few months. First and foremost, it’s terrible to see thousands of talented people out of work. It’s also tragic to see so many games get cancelled. I’m still upset that Free Radical’s Star Wars Battlefront 3 will never come out. That game looked unbelievable. That’s not always the case with cancelled games though. For example, I think the world’s a better place now that Pandemic’s The Dark Knight tie-in won’t clog up shelves across the land. From the sounds of it, that game was troubled with a capital OUBLED. It’s cancellation also means that Rocksteady Games’ original Batman game, Arkham Asylum, will have a much better chance of getting noticed by the millions upon millions of people obsessed with Bruce Wayne and Joker.

This new trailer doesn’t have any play in it, so it’s pretty useless for giving an impression of Arkham Asylum as a game. What it does have is plenty of story. Competently written and awesomely voiced story. Not to be too gigantic a geek, but that’s Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy you’re hearing! The Joker and Batman of Paul Dini’s Batman: The Animated Series! Speaking of Mr. Dini, he’s the man in charge of writing Arkham Asylum. This game is going to be like a giant playable episode of that show, albeit an episode with graphic violence suited to the drippy, bumpy textures of a game built on Unreal Engine 3. Sounds like a winning combination to me.

Rocksteady Games only has one other title under their belt, a PS2 first-person shooter called Urban Chaos: Riot Response. Anyone out there ever play it? Should we trust these guys to make an awesome Batman game?

Related links:

Batman Can't Even Land a Punch on Superman in a Video Game
A Silver Lining to the Dark Knight
Of Children and Lego Games: A Valid Concern

Bayonetta: Not As Gratuitous As You Think

John Constantine — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 22:00:00 GMT

Nah, I’m playing. Bayonetta is totally as gratuitous as you think. Sega came to NYC today and they brought Platinum Games’ Xbox 360/PS3 debut with them. I wasn’t allowed to get my hands on the controller, only a guided playthrough of the game’s first stage, but that was enough to say that Bayonetta’s every bit as over the top as its initial trailer made it out to be. It also looks like a hell of a good time.

Games are more than their graphics, I know, but it’s impossible to discuss Bayonetta without mentioning its presentation first. Without question, it is one of the most visually impressive games of the last five years. The game periodically goes into brief, playable flashbacks showcasing a war that left the titular character comatose for decades. One of these sequences is frames around a boss fight against a towering, obese dragon with two heads and a human face protruding from its swollen belly. The scene is a riot of color. Every inch of the crumbling environment is a meticulously detailed and animated. Even though the game’s months away from its fall 2009 release, Platinum Games’ new engine runs all the action without a hitch and the camera, a notorious trouble-maker in 3D action games like Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden, follows the action without obscuring it.

The best part of the demo was that it was all play, no cutscenes, and the best way to describe the action is Devil May Cry-on-speed. It looks like Kamiya’s spent all his time since the original DMC trying to come up with new ways to make combo-driven melee-and-gun combat even more of a spectacle. In addition to the kicks, punches, and four-limbed-rapid-fire shooting, Bayonetta can pick up any weapon dropped by an enemy, and use unique attacks. It sounds pedestrian when you put it that way. It’s a different story when you pick up a trumpet and start blowing up angels with music or picking up staffs and pole dancing bad guys to death. Like I said, Bayonetta is as gratuitous as it seems. As reported, the titular character's chief weapon is her hair, and since her attire is also happens to be her hair, progressive attacks reveal more and more skin. The fighting and special one-hit kills — fill a combo meter, press a button, kick an enemy into a spectral iron maiden — are so fast, though, that you barely notice that she’s de-robed. (Let me stress: the combat is fast, faster than any other 3D action game I've seen.) The same can’t be said for the finishing moves in boss fights, since Bayonetta turns her entire outfit into an enormous hair-dragon while the camera busies itself with her body.

So it looks great and the play seems tight, but the jury’s still out on whether or not Bayonetta is a good game. Without actually playing the game, it’s impossible to say whether or not the combat is as satisfying and nuanced as Devil May Cry 3’s. (It’s even harder to make any judgments since the demo had infinite life and combo meter turned on.) I also glimpsed a stray non-action part of the level that had Bayonetta running around a city populated with ghostly NPCs. Apparently the game takes place on a dimension overlaying reality and these ghosts are how regular old people appear from there. Unfortunately I wasn’t clued in on whether or not these adventure portions had any significant presence in the game. Looks like I’m just going to have to wait ten months to find out if Bayonetta’s a great game or merely a pretty one.

Related links:

Face-Off: Bayonetta and the Merits of Exploitation
Clover Returns, Heavy as Platinum
Independent at a Price: Sega and Platinum Games

Final Fantasy IV the After: Will America Land on the Moon?

Nadia Oxford — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 04:47:00 GMT

Do you like the moon? Of course you do. You've wanted to visit the moon since you were a child. You want to gorge on its green cheese. Don't contradict me.

Final Fantasy IV catered to childhood dreams by sending Cecil--and you!--on an adventure that climaxed in the core of the moon. When the world-consuming evil was put back to bed, Cecil had a climax of his own (sorry) and fathered a son with Rosa. “Ceodore” had his own adventure, known as Final Fantasy IV the After: Return of the Moon. But whereas his father was grand enough for the SNES, the DS, the GBA, the Wonderswan, the Playstation and God knows what else, Ceodore got a pat on the head and was sent off to wave his sword and make heroic declarations on cell phones across Japan.

But as the moon's phases change, so too does Ceodore's fate. Maybe.

A mysterious link suggests—only suggests, alas—that Final Fantasy IV the After might be headed for XBLA. From there, it would be a relatively short leap to an American release. Nothing in stone, of course, but the prospect would stand a far better chance as a whole. Even with the way the iPhone gives us games, cooks dinner and saves kittens from burning houses, they may as well be flaccid '90s-era carphones next to Japan's offerings. Cellphone gaming has a long way to go on this side of the ocean.

Ah, but if Final Fantasy IV the After were in fact to become an XBLA download...here is something I understand and will gladly partake of. I'm especially fascinated by an apparent plot point that involves Kain's “Dark Side” leaping out of his body like a conscious skeleton and kissing Rosa full on the mouth.

(I may have made part of that up.)

Related Links:

Gaming on a Train: Final Fantasy IV
Final Fantasy IV: Love, Hope and Betrayal for the Busy Commuter
Screen Test: Dissidia--Final Fantasy