I am on last weeks "What's the Rumpus" podcast! Check it out. Humorously entitled, "A whole lot of meat in my mouth...". I assure you it means nothing dirty (get your mind out of the gutter).
Some of the topics covered: VR chair, iphone costumes, software patents, PSPGo, Hardees burgers... all right!
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Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
Game Review - Dead Space Extraction : Visceral Games : Wii
Last night, I rented Dead Space Extraction for the Wii. I was not expecting TOO much from a rail shooter for the Wii. In fact, I was not expecting much out of a Wii title in general.
Dead Space Extraction is a prequel to one of my favorite games ever, Dead Space, which came out last year for the XBox 360, PS3 and PC. It takes place prior to the events of the first game on the Ishimura, a planet cracker class space barge, set out to extract a large chunk of Ageis VII. During extraction on the planet, Engineers found what is known as a "Marker", a large stone with mystical powers which start to affect the planet side team psychologically. A group of religious fanatics known as Unitologists believe it to be a holy relic which will bring about an age of enlightenment. So, even though everyone knows that the Marker is making them crazy, these Unitologists force the crew to extract the Marker from its resting place and bring it into the planet side station, eventually carting it up to the Ishimura.
Needless to say, everyone on the planet side goes crazy and starts killing themselves and others. The original Dead Space game covers the events of a rescue crew of the ship Kellion and their attempts to help those on the Ishimura. Extraction covers the events leading up to the Kellion's arrival, from the moment the Marker is extracted from the ground, to the moment the Kellion attempts to make radio broadcast to board the Ishimura.
The Good:
So, Extraction was released on the Wii, and many people were concerned that the Wii could not provide the graphics of the original game; as a result the title would suffer. I must say that from the minute I started playing, I was amazed at how well the Visceral team has been able to optimize the Wii graphics engine to render the environment of Dead Space. It felt like I was in the same environments when the game re-visits areas of the ship that you visit in the original. Granted, if both areas were placed side by side, you would see a major difference in texture qualities, dynamic lighting, and overall cleanness and detail in the environments. However as an homage to the original on an inferior system, it does alright.
Game play of Extraction was interesting, and surprisingly fun. I played through the game with some friends while drinking some beers, and the game provided enough challenge at even the easiest of game difficulties to allow a slightly intoxicated person to have a good time, but not feel like he/she were getting ripped off by cheesy deaths. Harder difficulties required much better motor skills and forced us to be more on our game as far as quick reloads and ammunition management were concerned.
Ammunition in the game does not come cheap, there were many times where my partner and I were out of ammo. Reduced to using the Rivet Gun to kill most monsters and to closely watch our stasis meters to avoid being hit by enemies. Also, I have to mention that it is amazing how well they recreated the weapons from the first game, from the Ripper, to the Line Gun. Each was wonderfully adapted to the Wii controls, using the tilted "gangster" style shooting to enable secondary fire. Weapon swapping was instantaneous which made picking the right weapon for the right monster quick and painless. Weapon swapping is handled by moving the analog control on the nun-chuck controller in one of the four primary directions.
Collecting items in Extraction is actually an enjoyable experience, especially in co-op play. Health is shared between players, making it not a competition but more of a relief when your partner picks up a Large Health Pack when you are low on health. Ammunition is not shared in Extraction, which I would not expect it to be, but weapon pickups and weapon upgrades are, allowing both you and your partner to gain more fire power and strength together.
Finally, I think that even though this was a prequel, something I usually dread in video game plot lines, Visceral did a wonderful job telling a story that, although is known, was still a bit vague in the minds of the original game's players. Most of the characters were new, while some were characters from the original whom played key parts in the story of the first game. Visceral, I believe, did a great job in incorporating known events, viewed from a different perspective. The events on Aegis VII were horrific and terrifying, and something that was not covered much in the first game. This game provides a great look at those events, from the moment the Marker is extracted, to the crashed ship leaving the shuttle bay, an event that was covered in the animated graphic novel series which was released at the time of the original title. Other events, are unique to this games play experience, some environments that you never see in the original are portrayed with great detail, such as the sewers of the Ishimura, and some of the areas on planet Aegis VII which you do not get to spend much time in during the original game.
The Bad:
So that brings us to what I didn't like about the game. Keep in mind that I am a bit jaded, I have played MANY survival horror games as well as arcade rail shooter games which, I think makes me a bit critical when it comes to what I think makes a good scary game.
Shaky Cam, there were many times where I felt like I was on a really really bumpy roller coaster. The camera moved far too much in some areas, reasonably since the game is set in a first person perspective and the character you are playing as is frantically searching around for some noise or looking at some sort of rubble debris. However, sometimes it felt like it was only to allow us as the players to pick up some item that we were only given about 1/10th of a second to pickup. Parts of the shaky cam areas that I disliked the most were when you are crawling around in the maintenance tunnels of the Ishimura. These times it felt like you were tumbling really fast for no reason and it was quite disorienting.
Target Cursors in the game were far too big and far to bright. The environment of Dead Space is dark, the creatures textures are dark reds, and there are many many shadows that envelop corners of the scenes. Having large bright cursors tended to make seeing what it was I was shooting very difficult. This is probably my number one complaint about the game. Sometimes I felt like i was just shooting in the general direction of the creature and if i blew off limbs, well then I got lucky.
While playing, collecting weapons from the first game is nostalgic, seeing as most are from the original game. However, one weapon in particular was my favorite from the original, the Ripper. A gun that used telekinesis to hold a spinning saw blade in mid air so that it could be used to hack apart necromorphs. Originally an all around enjoyable experience. Yet, in Extraction, this weapon, although still one of my favorites, was annoyingly buggy. Even when the only thing between my saw blade and a necromorph was processed digital air, the blade would still stay out of reach of the necromorph; wasting precious necromorphic slaughter time.
Not, enough boss fights was another issue. The game is only 10 chapters long, and not every level has a boss fight. Sometimes boss fights are really really good and sometimes they suck, and sometimes they are the only reason to play a game. None of these were true for Extraction. At best the few boss fights that there are, are mildly enjoyable, others are too simple but still alright.The boss fights of Extraction do not hold up to the original Dead Space, such as the Zero-G battle with the large plant-like creature in the Original game. In this fight, you could run around the outside ring of the hull while avoiding tentacles and shooting at big orange bulbous alien parts. Something like that would have been somewhat feasible in Extraction, and would have lent itself to a better end of level event in my opinion.
Finally, being on rails, it really pulled much of the "Horror" out of the title for me. Granted, the game still has its moments, where things pop out at you and scare the crap out of you, some sequences even remind me of the classic horror game Eternal Darkness, for the Gamecube (expect a replay review of that coming soon). Since the marker makes people hallucinate, visions of things that are not there, or things that are but not as they appear, makes for a great scare or mind bending feeling. Yet, overall, this game was not nearly as scary as the original Dead Space. It is hard to place a specific reason for this, I think perhaps being on rails it makes it feel more like a ride at Disney Land, riding a cam through a haunted house. Perhaps too, that since you do not have to control your characters movements, it is simply not as challenging as when having to avoid large numbers of space zombies while attempting to shoot at them in a third person perspective, as a result, much of the suspense is lost.
Overall:
In the end, I did enjoy playing Dead Space Extraction, it was also one of the few games that I have beaten in a single evening. The other, most recently, was Umbrella Chronicles, another rail horror title for the Wii. Overall, it took about 5 1/2 hours to beat the game on its easiest setting, we only died twice. Based on what we played of the hardest difficulty, the game would not last much longer and only due to more frequent deaths. I have to say it was a fun rental, due to the ability of having two players play at once, yet I could never recommend that someone buy this game at its $50 dollar price tag. The game play is not captivating enough to warrant too many multiple re-plays, and if you feel like you want to play it again, a couple dollar rental fee is much better than $50/number of times you run through the game per play.
If you have played the original Dead Space, I do recommend that if you have a Wii, that you take the 5 1/2 hours, buy some brews (if your of age that is), and spend an evening with the lights dimmed low, the sound system turned up, and a friend or two to go out and blast some necromorphs with. I think you will be fairly happy you did.
Dead Space Extraction is a prequel to one of my favorite games ever, Dead Space, which came out last year for the XBox 360, PS3 and PC. It takes place prior to the events of the first game on the Ishimura, a planet cracker class space barge, set out to extract a large chunk of Ageis VII. During extraction on the planet, Engineers found what is known as a "Marker", a large stone with mystical powers which start to affect the planet side team psychologically. A group of religious fanatics known as Unitologists believe it to be a holy relic which will bring about an age of enlightenment. So, even though everyone knows that the Marker is making them crazy, these Unitologists force the crew to extract the Marker from its resting place and bring it into the planet side station, eventually carting it up to the Ishimura.
Needless to say, everyone on the planet side goes crazy and starts killing themselves and others. The original Dead Space game covers the events of a rescue crew of the ship Kellion and their attempts to help those on the Ishimura. Extraction covers the events leading up to the Kellion's arrival, from the moment the Marker is extracted from the ground, to the moment the Kellion attempts to make radio broadcast to board the Ishimura.
The Good:
So, Extraction was released on the Wii, and many people were concerned that the Wii could not provide the graphics of the original game; as a result the title would suffer. I must say that from the minute I started playing, I was amazed at how well the Visceral team has been able to optimize the Wii graphics engine to render the environment of Dead Space. It felt like I was in the same environments when the game re-visits areas of the ship that you visit in the original. Granted, if both areas were placed side by side, you would see a major difference in texture qualities, dynamic lighting, and overall cleanness and detail in the environments. However as an homage to the original on an inferior system, it does alright.
Game play of Extraction was interesting, and surprisingly fun. I played through the game with some friends while drinking some beers, and the game provided enough challenge at even the easiest of game difficulties to allow a slightly intoxicated person to have a good time, but not feel like he/she were getting ripped off by cheesy deaths. Harder difficulties required much better motor skills and forced us to be more on our game as far as quick reloads and ammunition management were concerned.
Ammunition in the game does not come cheap, there were many times where my partner and I were out of ammo. Reduced to using the Rivet Gun to kill most monsters and to closely watch our stasis meters to avoid being hit by enemies. Also, I have to mention that it is amazing how well they recreated the weapons from the first game, from the Ripper, to the Line Gun. Each was wonderfully adapted to the Wii controls, using the tilted "gangster" style shooting to enable secondary fire. Weapon swapping was instantaneous which made picking the right weapon for the right monster quick and painless. Weapon swapping is handled by moving the analog control on the nun-chuck controller in one of the four primary directions.
Collecting items in Extraction is actually an enjoyable experience, especially in co-op play. Health is shared between players, making it not a competition but more of a relief when your partner picks up a Large Health Pack when you are low on health. Ammunition is not shared in Extraction, which I would not expect it to be, but weapon pickups and weapon upgrades are, allowing both you and your partner to gain more fire power and strength together.
Finally, I think that even though this was a prequel, something I usually dread in video game plot lines, Visceral did a wonderful job telling a story that, although is known, was still a bit vague in the minds of the original game's players. Most of the characters were new, while some were characters from the original whom played key parts in the story of the first game. Visceral, I believe, did a great job in incorporating known events, viewed from a different perspective. The events on Aegis VII were horrific and terrifying, and something that was not covered much in the first game. This game provides a great look at those events, from the moment the Marker is extracted, to the crashed ship leaving the shuttle bay, an event that was covered in the animated graphic novel series which was released at the time of the original title. Other events, are unique to this games play experience, some environments that you never see in the original are portrayed with great detail, such as the sewers of the Ishimura, and some of the areas on planet Aegis VII which you do not get to spend much time in during the original game.
The Bad:
So that brings us to what I didn't like about the game. Keep in mind that I am a bit jaded, I have played MANY survival horror games as well as arcade rail shooter games which, I think makes me a bit critical when it comes to what I think makes a good scary game.
Shaky Cam, there were many times where I felt like I was on a really really bumpy roller coaster. The camera moved far too much in some areas, reasonably since the game is set in a first person perspective and the character you are playing as is frantically searching around for some noise or looking at some sort of rubble debris. However, sometimes it felt like it was only to allow us as the players to pick up some item that we were only given about 1/10th of a second to pickup. Parts of the shaky cam areas that I disliked the most were when you are crawling around in the maintenance tunnels of the Ishimura. These times it felt like you were tumbling really fast for no reason and it was quite disorienting.
Target Cursors in the game were far too big and far to bright. The environment of Dead Space is dark, the creatures textures are dark reds, and there are many many shadows that envelop corners of the scenes. Having large bright cursors tended to make seeing what it was I was shooting very difficult. This is probably my number one complaint about the game. Sometimes I felt like i was just shooting in the general direction of the creature and if i blew off limbs, well then I got lucky.
While playing, collecting weapons from the first game is nostalgic, seeing as most are from the original game. However, one weapon in particular was my favorite from the original, the Ripper. A gun that used telekinesis to hold a spinning saw blade in mid air so that it could be used to hack apart necromorphs. Originally an all around enjoyable experience. Yet, in Extraction, this weapon, although still one of my favorites, was annoyingly buggy. Even when the only thing between my saw blade and a necromorph was processed digital air, the blade would still stay out of reach of the necromorph; wasting precious necromorphic slaughter time.
Not, enough boss fights was another issue. The game is only 10 chapters long, and not every level has a boss fight. Sometimes boss fights are really really good and sometimes they suck, and sometimes they are the only reason to play a game. None of these were true for Extraction. At best the few boss fights that there are, are mildly enjoyable, others are too simple but still alright.The boss fights of Extraction do not hold up to the original Dead Space, such as the Zero-G battle with the large plant-like creature in the Original game. In this fight, you could run around the outside ring of the hull while avoiding tentacles and shooting at big orange bulbous alien parts. Something like that would have been somewhat feasible in Extraction, and would have lent itself to a better end of level event in my opinion.
Finally, being on rails, it really pulled much of the "Horror" out of the title for me. Granted, the game still has its moments, where things pop out at you and scare the crap out of you, some sequences even remind me of the classic horror game Eternal Darkness, for the Gamecube (expect a replay review of that coming soon). Since the marker makes people hallucinate, visions of things that are not there, or things that are but not as they appear, makes for a great scare or mind bending feeling. Yet, overall, this game was not nearly as scary as the original Dead Space. It is hard to place a specific reason for this, I think perhaps being on rails it makes it feel more like a ride at Disney Land, riding a cam through a haunted house. Perhaps too, that since you do not have to control your characters movements, it is simply not as challenging as when having to avoid large numbers of space zombies while attempting to shoot at them in a third person perspective, as a result, much of the suspense is lost.
Overall:
In the end, I did enjoy playing Dead Space Extraction, it was also one of the few games that I have beaten in a single evening. The other, most recently, was Umbrella Chronicles, another rail horror title for the Wii. Overall, it took about 5 1/2 hours to beat the game on its easiest setting, we only died twice. Based on what we played of the hardest difficulty, the game would not last much longer and only due to more frequent deaths. I have to say it was a fun rental, due to the ability of having two players play at once, yet I could never recommend that someone buy this game at its $50 dollar price tag. The game play is not captivating enough to warrant too many multiple re-plays, and if you feel like you want to play it again, a couple dollar rental fee is much better than $50/number of times you run through the game per play.
If you have played the original Dead Space, I do recommend that if you have a Wii, that you take the 5 1/2 hours, buy some brews (if your of age that is), and spend an evening with the lights dimmed low, the sound system turned up, and a friend or two to go out and blast some necromorphs with. I think you will be fairly happy you did.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Harshness of Old Game Reviews
I have been reading many reviews as of late, especially since I have started reviewing more games for this blog. I suppose it is just a means of trying to improve my writing based on styles of other professionals in that space. Its not like I'm trying to do it for a living, my job is a programmer through and through. However, I do like to read good reviews, and I love to play video games, thus this site.
My problem is with reviews of older games. Especially ones from gen 2 and 3 of video game systems. You know, NES, Genesis, Super Nintendo... I have noticed that games reviewed from these genres are overly harsh if they are reviewed anytime since 2000 and on.
#1 reason for this, poor graphics... DUDE! These games were made in the late 80's to early 90's, give these guys a break. I think a review should be subjective based on the system/era that it is being reviewed for. Castlevania for the NES is not going to compare to Castlevania for the NDS... its just not going to happen. Applications like Photoshop were not as good or didn't even exist back then. I'm sure many of these games were either done using raw pixel manipulation or using applications like MS Paint. Also, most of the guys doing art back then were not artists, most of them were programmers, nerdy computer scientists that loved making video games.
#2 Nostalgic impression over hyping actual game play mechanics. Many people are deathly attached to the feeling a game gave them when they played them the first time when they were a kid. Now going back and playing these older games, many people are like "WOW, that game was not very good. The jumping is choppy, movement is sluggish, and oh man, the screen flickered on me while I was playing it."
I think people need to keep in mind that these systems were not that fast, and people putting effort into optimizing their game for the system did a good job most of the time. Granted, compared to other games of the same genera, if the game was slow then say it was slow. I'm just saying, do not compare that systems frame rates/control responsiveness to today's games. Remember that nostalgic feeling you had as a kid and put yourself back into the same mind set you had back then. I think this is great advice for anyone playing an older game of their childhood, I think you will be less disappointed by your child hood favorites if you do this.
#3 Do not review a game less harshly because of the effects of #1 and #2. I know this seems counter-intuitive to the general sense of my article, but I see this a lot too. Just because you love a game, and you realize that the hardware is older, game play mechanics were not as refined due to iterations of a franchise and genera, do not let this affect your review. Again, keep in mind the era that you are reviewing for. Do not give Zelda: A Link to the Past a 10 out of 10 just because it is your favorite game of all time, be critical of things such as game play mechanics, color schemes (which i think were sometimes poorly picked for this title), and sound, just keep them relative to the space in which they should be reviewed.
Look at things like Game Informers Then and Now sections and see how games rated back in the day they were created compared to where they are now. I think most of the time Game Informer does a decent job of reviewing older titles, but they are even a bit overly harsh or under critical at times. Realize how far games have come from then till now, it is actually quite amazing how far the industry has progressed in a mere 25 years.
The reason I bring this up is that many reviewers fall into these pitfalls, myself included at times. Yet as a gaming fan, and one who has not played EVERY good old game out there, I do read reviews to try and judge where to spend my precious gaming hours, and I would hate to miss a great older game that I have never experienced before, simply because I was turned off by some reviewer who thought that Need For Speed Hot Pursuit should be like Need For Speed Shift in terms of quality of AI, handling performance of vehicles, music quality, and visual representation of cars/levels. Now if you said that it didn't hold a flame to Grand Turismo as far as realism of the vehicles, yet it held a nice charm when it came to car customization and simply had fun game play experience, not to mention the El Nino (which was an awesome video game car imho), then I would respect that and would find a review of this nature a bit more informative.
Now on the other hand, I totally think that past games can be used as reference in a new games review. If your new iteration of a franchise sucks compared to your past successes, that's a problem. Games are suppose to get better with each iteration, if they don't, do not ruin your franchise with some crap. Shame on the developers for allowing your publisher to push you into running your franchise name through the mud just so they can line their pockets with money that is garnered by your fans loyalty (I'm looking at you Will Wright/EA).
My problem is with reviews of older games. Especially ones from gen 2 and 3 of video game systems. You know, NES, Genesis, Super Nintendo... I have noticed that games reviewed from these genres are overly harsh if they are reviewed anytime since 2000 and on.
#1 reason for this, poor graphics... DUDE! These games were made in the late 80's to early 90's, give these guys a break. I think a review should be subjective based on the system/era that it is being reviewed for. Castlevania for the NES is not going to compare to Castlevania for the NDS... its just not going to happen. Applications like Photoshop were not as good or didn't even exist back then. I'm sure many of these games were either done using raw pixel manipulation or using applications like MS Paint. Also, most of the guys doing art back then were not artists, most of them were programmers, nerdy computer scientists that loved making video games.
#2 Nostalgic impression over hyping actual game play mechanics. Many people are deathly attached to the feeling a game gave them when they played them the first time when they were a kid. Now going back and playing these older games, many people are like "WOW, that game was not very good. The jumping is choppy, movement is sluggish, and oh man, the screen flickered on me while I was playing it."
I think people need to keep in mind that these systems were not that fast, and people putting effort into optimizing their game for the system did a good job most of the time. Granted, compared to other games of the same genera, if the game was slow then say it was slow. I'm just saying, do not compare that systems frame rates/control responsiveness to today's games. Remember that nostalgic feeling you had as a kid and put yourself back into the same mind set you had back then. I think this is great advice for anyone playing an older game of their childhood, I think you will be less disappointed by your child hood favorites if you do this.
#3 Do not review a game less harshly because of the effects of #1 and #2. I know this seems counter-intuitive to the general sense of my article, but I see this a lot too. Just because you love a game, and you realize that the hardware is older, game play mechanics were not as refined due to iterations of a franchise and genera, do not let this affect your review. Again, keep in mind the era that you are reviewing for. Do not give Zelda: A Link to the Past a 10 out of 10 just because it is your favorite game of all time, be critical of things such as game play mechanics, color schemes (which i think were sometimes poorly picked for this title), and sound, just keep them relative to the space in which they should be reviewed.
Look at things like Game Informers Then and Now sections and see how games rated back in the day they were created compared to where they are now. I think most of the time Game Informer does a decent job of reviewing older titles, but they are even a bit overly harsh or under critical at times. Realize how far games have come from then till now, it is actually quite amazing how far the industry has progressed in a mere 25 years.
The reason I bring this up is that many reviewers fall into these pitfalls, myself included at times. Yet as a gaming fan, and one who has not played EVERY good old game out there, I do read reviews to try and judge where to spend my precious gaming hours, and I would hate to miss a great older game that I have never experienced before, simply because I was turned off by some reviewer who thought that Need For Speed Hot Pursuit should be like Need For Speed Shift in terms of quality of AI, handling performance of vehicles, music quality, and visual representation of cars/levels. Now if you said that it didn't hold a flame to Grand Turismo as far as realism of the vehicles, yet it held a nice charm when it came to car customization and simply had fun game play experience, not to mention the El Nino (which was an awesome video game car imho), then I would respect that and would find a review of this nature a bit more informative.
Now on the other hand, I totally think that past games can be used as reference in a new games review. If your new iteration of a franchise sucks compared to your past successes, that's a problem. Games are suppose to get better with each iteration, if they don't, do not ruin your franchise with some crap. Shame on the developers for allowing your publisher to push you into running your franchise name through the mud just so they can line their pockets with money that is garnered by your fans loyalty (I'm looking at you Will Wright/EA).
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Why I WIll Never Buy a PSPGo
See all these lovely UMD cases? 29 Games and 4 video disks. Since The PSPGo was announced, it was believed that Sony would be handling the conversion of UMD to digital downloads through some sort of program where game-owners would be shipping in their old UMDs in exchange for a ticket for a digital download through the Playstation store. However, recently it was announced that at release data, this program would not be offered and anyone who owns a UMD would have to re-purchase their beloved PSP games if they wanted to play them on their new players.
Now, I don't know about you, but I don't have boat loads of money (especially in this economy) to go out and drop a few hundred dollars on a new hardware system without some sort of trade in compensation from my old hardware. Thus, it would be un-economical for me to keep my old fat PSP1000 just so I can play all my old games without having to pay for them again.
UMDs aside, there is a whole slew of other reasons I would never purchase the PSPGo.
Reason 1: It looks like a third graders cell phone that can not make calls unless on WiFi using Skype. Not that I don't like skype functionality, I really do. Yet, if you are going to make it out of cheap cell phone plastic and give it the slide open look that a sidekick has, then let it make phone calls. Sony claims that this is going to compete with the IPhone market... Well, let me tell you what, my IPhone can also make phone calls and surf the web on 3G networks. Which brings me to reason 2.
Reason 2: No 3G support. If this device is suppose to re-revolutionize mobile gaming, then you better have 3G support because what if I am walking around the city and I just NEED to get my God of War fix, then I do not want to have to walk around for 20 minutes to find an unprotected WiFi router to hop onto so I can download my game. I would really rather just turn it on, download it quick, and start playing. No 3G support? Well, I guess I'll just go buy a new app for my IPhone. Sorry Sony!
Reason 3: SDK for PSPMini apps should have been made more accessible. Apple did the right thing when it introduced its app developer program. Anyone with a mac can make applications for the IPhone. I took a brief look at the requirements to make a PSPMini application... It seemed like you basically need to be a full time game developer, with an office, and an LLC behind your name before Sony will let you touch the SDK. Not a smart move Sony, look at the numbers of IPhone applications that Apple is making bank off of that were made by indy game/application developers in their bedrooms.
Reason 4: No touch screen. The phone, I mean PSPGo, has a beautiful big screen on the front of the device. However, this screen is practically useless when the device is closed. Another big downfall of an already failing system. My biggest complaint about this though is that with the device closed, the screen is basically useless in this state. Maybe they should have had the screen fold in to protect it instead of being exposed to the elements and my scratchy jean pockets. Would this have made the PSPGo too much like the Nintendo DS? At least my Nintendo DS screen is protected when I'm not using it.
Reason 5: Old operating system and an old processor. I would have liked to see the PSPGo have a faster processor in it than what they put in. I'm sure that it wouldn't have been much more expensive to speed up the OS, maybe even add some more ram so my web browser doesn't crash on me every other page like the older PSP systems are known to do. In this age we have a more diversified web with applications that are rapidly growing in complexity. The system needs to be able to support more hardware intensive operations. I just feel that this hardware is not going to be able to keep up for much more than a year, and perhaps its time has already passed.
Sony... If you ever read this, take my words into consideration. Quit alienating your customers. They are the only reason you're still in business. There are many of us that are very loyal to the brand, but loyalty only is granted through a continuous relationship of trust and understanding. I am starting to lose faith in your products, and I can not bring myself to buy a new PSP under these circumstances. Wake up!
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Game Review - Legendary : PS3 : Spark
Overview:
Legendary is a FPS (First Person Shooter) developed by Spark and published by Gamecock. This title is based on the Pandora's Box mythos which describes a box that was created by the Greek god Zeus for the created woman Pandora as a plague upon the earth. The game describes this box as not actually a Greek mythological object, but a real life tool that has been fought over throughout the course of history as it contains powers that can make kings or destroy civilizations.
The game enters with a secret order called the Black Order hiring your character, Charles Deckard to open the box known as Pandora's Box. Now knowing the legend behind Pandora's Box, something tells me no amount of money in the world would get me to open that box. Regardless, this guy apparently has some major debt to pay off because he actually opens the box. Enter crazy numbers of mythical creatures including werewolves, minotaurs, griffins, golems, a huge kraken (which was a boss fight) and these really annoying faeries.
Now, once Deckard opens the box, a magical signet is impaled into his hand allowing him to suck up a magical life energy from these creatures and using it for not a whole lot other than to heal himself and to power EMP and other similar devices.
The Bad:
The reason I picked this game up was that it was fairly cheap from a used game store, and I like mythical creatures and what better way to show my love of mythical creatures than to fire thousands of rounds of digital ammunition into them? So, I was very disappointed when I found out that much of the game was centered around fighting the Black Order and not fighting awesome critters. Not to say that you do not fight a bunch of mythical beasts, but much of the time it feels like werewolves are being thrown at you just so you have some way of recovering health, since this magical energy is generally not just laying around. There are moments where fighting the creatures is enjoyable, such as the first fight with the griffin and the first fight with the minotaur, however, many of these creature fights feel like you are just suppose to blast a couple hundred rounds of ammo in the creatures general direction until they die, while dodging like crazy in hopes of not being eaten. There really was no good strategy for fighting beyond that and as stated before, the signet isn't much good for fighting any of the really challenging creatures, other than the extra health bar it provides.
Some of the other downfalls of the game were related to actual game play mechanics. Jumping felt like an after thought. You jump too quick and the height is too short. It feels like they decided that they needed jumping for one or two levels based on their design and instead of making sure the rest of the levels couldn't be jump broken, they just decided to make the distance/height of the jump so small that it was impossible to jump except for the few exceptions that it is required.
Also, in some parts of the game, the models when hiding behind things, appear to be providing a clear line of sight on the enemy, however, when firing you still hit the object you are hiding behind. I am aware that this is a common issue in games that result from the model's collision model being less detailed than the in game rendered model for computational reasons, yet in this title it just felt like it was really an problem and at times a hinderance. In fact, sometimes it felt like I was standing next to a fairly primitively shaped object and would still have the problem of firing around the object. The most amusing thing is that the AI apparently had trouble with this too, as it is notoriously bad at throwing grenades and would end up killing itself in the process. This made me laugh more times than I can count.
Other minor things included: door sizes being too small in areas, making it frustratingly difficult to traverse in some locations. Also, some levels were laid out very challenging, with check points too far apart in my opinion. I hate having to spend 15 minutes to get to right before the next check point, only to have 4-6 werewolves back me in a corner where the controls start acting up making it so I can not move. Not to say that I do not like challenging games, but there were at least 3-4 spots in this game where I just felt ripped off by the game as if it were denying me my justly deserved checkpoint.
The Good:
Some positives of the game; I thought the voice acting was decent... not the best I've ever heard, but no Resident Evil 1 for the Playstation by any means. Also, cut scenes, although couldn't be skipped, were entertaining and the between chapter art work was fairly nice. All hand painted and well narrated. There was also one part of the first "chapter" that I really liked, where the faeries move around an EMP device that you are suppose to charge. I thought that part was well executed and I give that script writer props and I hope he got a raise for that.
I also really enjoyed the ending.
***SPOILER ALERT***
Not for its cheesy way it kills the bad guy, but because of the way that it didn't meet my expectations of being a Bioshock rip-off. I was totally expecting the game to take the overly used twist of "The guys you are working for are really the bad guys and they have just been playing you this whole time you poor defenseless player! Oh wait, your not defenseless, lets go kick their ass!". No, it didn't take that twist (well not entirely), instead Deckard becomes friends with the animals after busting out of the Councils jail where he is imprisoned for study of his signet after destroying the original box. However, none of this part is playable, instead they just choose to wrap up the story nicely in cinematic form. I do give them credit for this as it is not done as often as was my expected ending to a good vs. evil vs. monsters game ending is.
***END SPOILER ALERT***
Overall, I enjoyed playing the game, it was a nice 3 day experience for me. It doesn't win any awards in my book, and the game play did feel a little lacking. I would rather have seen them rip-off Bioshock and provide some sort of mini game while hacking door locks instead of just having me wait 20 seconds in a room with no dangers, just cause they want to add some extra button press usage. However, story line was decent, acting wasn't "terrible" and the art and animation of the creatures (especially the Griffins) were well done. I would say that I would give this game a 55 out of 100, or about 5 out of 10 stars, or an C to a C+, depending on your scale. Either way, I would recommend this game if you're bored, have nothing else that you really want to play, or do not have much money in these hard economic times to buy a good game, but still want to play video games instead of finding a real job. (Thats right you heard me you bum, get off my couch and get a real job!)
Legendary is a FPS (First Person Shooter) developed by Spark and published by Gamecock. This title is based on the Pandora's Box mythos which describes a box that was created by the Greek god Zeus for the created woman Pandora as a plague upon the earth. The game describes this box as not actually a Greek mythological object, but a real life tool that has been fought over throughout the course of history as it contains powers that can make kings or destroy civilizations.
The game enters with a secret order called the Black Order hiring your character, Charles Deckard to open the box known as Pandora's Box. Now knowing the legend behind Pandora's Box, something tells me no amount of money in the world would get me to open that box. Regardless, this guy apparently has some major debt to pay off because he actually opens the box. Enter crazy numbers of mythical creatures including werewolves, minotaurs, griffins, golems, a huge kraken (which was a boss fight) and these really annoying faeries.
Now, once Deckard opens the box, a magical signet is impaled into his hand allowing him to suck up a magical life energy from these creatures and using it for not a whole lot other than to heal himself and to power EMP and other similar devices.
The Bad:
The reason I picked this game up was that it was fairly cheap from a used game store, and I like mythical creatures and what better way to show my love of mythical creatures than to fire thousands of rounds of digital ammunition into them? So, I was very disappointed when I found out that much of the game was centered around fighting the Black Order and not fighting awesome critters. Not to say that you do not fight a bunch of mythical beasts, but much of the time it feels like werewolves are being thrown at you just so you have some way of recovering health, since this magical energy is generally not just laying around. There are moments where fighting the creatures is enjoyable, such as the first fight with the griffin and the first fight with the minotaur, however, many of these creature fights feel like you are just suppose to blast a couple hundred rounds of ammo in the creatures general direction until they die, while dodging like crazy in hopes of not being eaten. There really was no good strategy for fighting beyond that and as stated before, the signet isn't much good for fighting any of the really challenging creatures, other than the extra health bar it provides.
Some of the other downfalls of the game were related to actual game play mechanics. Jumping felt like an after thought. You jump too quick and the height is too short. It feels like they decided that they needed jumping for one or two levels based on their design and instead of making sure the rest of the levels couldn't be jump broken, they just decided to make the distance/height of the jump so small that it was impossible to jump except for the few exceptions that it is required.
Also, in some parts of the game, the models when hiding behind things, appear to be providing a clear line of sight on the enemy, however, when firing you still hit the object you are hiding behind. I am aware that this is a common issue in games that result from the model's collision model being less detailed than the in game rendered model for computational reasons, yet in this title it just felt like it was really an problem and at times a hinderance. In fact, sometimes it felt like I was standing next to a fairly primitively shaped object and would still have the problem of firing around the object. The most amusing thing is that the AI apparently had trouble with this too, as it is notoriously bad at throwing grenades and would end up killing itself in the process. This made me laugh more times than I can count.
Other minor things included: door sizes being too small in areas, making it frustratingly difficult to traverse in some locations. Also, some levels were laid out very challenging, with check points too far apart in my opinion. I hate having to spend 15 minutes to get to right before the next check point, only to have 4-6 werewolves back me in a corner where the controls start acting up making it so I can not move. Not to say that I do not like challenging games, but there were at least 3-4 spots in this game where I just felt ripped off by the game as if it were denying me my justly deserved checkpoint.
The Good:
Some positives of the game; I thought the voice acting was decent... not the best I've ever heard, but no Resident Evil 1 for the Playstation by any means. Also, cut scenes, although couldn't be skipped, were entertaining and the between chapter art work was fairly nice. All hand painted and well narrated. There was also one part of the first "chapter" that I really liked, where the faeries move around an EMP device that you are suppose to charge. I thought that part was well executed and I give that script writer props and I hope he got a raise for that.
I also really enjoyed the ending.
***SPOILER ALERT***
Not for its cheesy way it kills the bad guy, but because of the way that it didn't meet my expectations of being a Bioshock rip-off. I was totally expecting the game to take the overly used twist of "The guys you are working for are really the bad guys and they have just been playing you this whole time you poor defenseless player! Oh wait, your not defenseless, lets go kick their ass!". No, it didn't take that twist (well not entirely), instead Deckard becomes friends with the animals after busting out of the Councils jail where he is imprisoned for study of his signet after destroying the original box. However, none of this part is playable, instead they just choose to wrap up the story nicely in cinematic form. I do give them credit for this as it is not done as often as was my expected ending to a good vs. evil vs. monsters game ending is.
***END SPOILER ALERT***
Overall, I enjoyed playing the game, it was a nice 3 day experience for me. It doesn't win any awards in my book, and the game play did feel a little lacking. I would rather have seen them rip-off Bioshock and provide some sort of mini game while hacking door locks instead of just having me wait 20 seconds in a room with no dangers, just cause they want to add some extra button press usage. However, story line was decent, acting wasn't "terrible" and the art and animation of the creatures (especially the Griffins) were well done. I would say that I would give this game a 55 out of 100, or about 5 out of 10 stars, or an C to a C+, depending on your scale. Either way, I would recommend this game if you're bored, have nothing else that you really want to play, or do not have much money in these hard economic times to buy a good game, but still want to play video games instead of finding a real job. (Thats right you heard me you bum, get off my couch and get a real job!)
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Google SideWiki and Gaming
I have recently heard about this new tool that Google is coming out with called SideWiki. Basically what this does is allow Google toolbar users to add wiki like elements to a side bar on web pages that they visit. These are then visible to everyone who uses SideWiki that visit a web page.
My interest is to see what people do with this tool in the arena of altered reality gaming. We have seen this in the past with, for example, the Nine Inch Nails site when Trent Reznor was preparing to release the Year Zero album. The series of sites had unique and hidden context that could only be discovered by closely inspecting the sites.
The concept is interesting, not really what I would call a game, but could conceivably be turned into one. Such as the legendary Majestic from EA back in 2001. That game had a great concept and a real story line. What I imagine for the Google SideWiki is something more like your standard pen and paper RPG, where perhaps one group of people create a plot line based on a series of sites that the other group of people playing must discover/navigate to collect all of the clues to solve some sort of web mystery. Perhaps a secret web site that they could log into and find out if they were the first to figure out all the clues. The best part is that if you found a clue, you could in theory, alter the SideWiki to throw others off of the trail if they weren't smart enough to look at the history.
I think it is an interesting idea and one that maybe other might find interesting as well. The thought makes me think of geo-cacheing, something I find fascinating but would never personally partake in. I hope someone takes this idea and runs with it.
My interest is to see what people do with this tool in the arena of altered reality gaming. We have seen this in the past with, for example, the Nine Inch Nails site when Trent Reznor was preparing to release the Year Zero album. The series of sites had unique and hidden context that could only be discovered by closely inspecting the sites.
The concept is interesting, not really what I would call a game, but could conceivably be turned into one. Such as the legendary Majestic from EA back in 2001. That game had a great concept and a real story line. What I imagine for the Google SideWiki is something more like your standard pen and paper RPG, where perhaps one group of people create a plot line based on a series of sites that the other group of people playing must discover/navigate to collect all of the clues to solve some sort of web mystery. Perhaps a secret web site that they could log into and find out if they were the first to figure out all the clues. The best part is that if you found a clue, you could in theory, alter the SideWiki to throw others off of the trail if they weren't smart enough to look at the history.
I think it is an interesting idea and one that maybe other might find interesting as well. The thought makes me think of geo-cacheing, something I find fascinating but would never personally partake in. I hope someone takes this idea and runs with it.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Ogre3D updates Licensing
Ogre3D, the open source 3D graphics engine by Torus Knot Software Ltd had decided to change their licensing from their current LGPL licensing to the MIT Licensing. This is really exciting as this new licensing that they will be using in their up and comming release 1.7 is less restrictive by not requiring developers who use the free open source engine to release any base source code changes.
The reasoning behind this is to provide more incentive to get commercial and non-commercial to use and extend the Ogre engine in their projects. I am personally hoping that this does push the Ogre engine a bit more towards the mainstream game development scene. I hope that more companies will consider using this flexable and free engine in their development model. I think that using Open Source software in mainstream development will help to reduce the large cost of game developent and allow developers more time and money to be more flexable and creative in the types of games that they are creating. By allowing them to keep their proprietary custom code private, I feel that this will encourage them to use the engine more freely.
The reasoning behind this is to provide more incentive to get commercial and non-commercial to use and extend the Ogre engine in their projects. I am personally hoping that this does push the Ogre engine a bit more towards the mainstream game development scene. I hope that more companies will consider using this flexable and free engine in their development model. I think that using Open Source software in mainstream development will help to reduce the large cost of game developent and allow developers more time and money to be more flexable and creative in the types of games that they are creating. By allowing them to keep their proprietary custom code private, I feel that this will encourage them to use the engine more freely.
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