Art - Bathroom Starcraft Flyer

Something I whipped together today for our bathroom at work. We have noticed a large number of people who don't wash their hands... eww...

So a little Starcraft humor for the bathroom. Original artwork is owned by Blizzard.

Game Review - Enslaved Odyssey to the West : Ninja Theory : PS3

I purchased Enslaved without knowing much about the title. Mostly that it was made by Ninja Theory and that it would have the same motion capture and voice acting work as Heavenly Sword. I was impressed by the level of cinematography in Heavenly Sword and with my love for action/adventure platformers such as the God of War series, Dante's Inferno, Darksiders, and Prince of Persia, I thought that I would really enjoy this game. The screen shots and cover art seemed interesting enough and the premise was something different as far as I could tell from the run of the mill "You are the hero, and you will go defeat the bad guy".

In Enslaved you play as Monkey, a man who lost his parents when he was young and has lived in the post apocalyptic USA about 200 years after nature has reclaimed the city. You meet Monkey while he is trapped on a slave ship, something the game never reveals how this comes about. You witness the other main character in the game, Trip, escape from her pod and start the slave ship on a collision course into New York city.

After escaping the ship you find yourself enslaved by Trip, forced to act to her every command, otherwise she will kill you. If she dies, you die. This leads to an interesting dynamic, but one that is actually quite glossed over in the game. Monkey and Trip become fast friends, only infrequently having dialog in the vein of Monkey's dislike for becoming enslaved. Maybe he just finds Trip so attractive (which she is) that he is willing to be her slave, hoping for some sexual torture as a reward.

Regardless of this, the dialog between Monkey and Trip reminded me heavily of the Ubisoft reboot of Prince of Persia. Interlaced humor and witty banter is quite prevalent. As both a pro and a con, you do not however have to perform an action button press to hear this witty banter, it is just interlaced throughout the level game play.

This leads into the second important aspect of the game, the game play. This I also found to be very similar to the Prince of Persia reboot, except that the parkour aspects of the environment were too easy to traverse. There was no chance of falling in most cases and it seemed to that pressing a direction and rapidly pressing the x button was effective enough in avoiding any potentially hazardous ledges that may fall. Combat was somewhat unique in that you use a staff much like Beyond Good and Evil, but that there was also combined areas of over the shoulder firing from your staff's plasma cannon. Overall, playing on normal difficulty, combat was very easy for the most part. There were very few times that I found myself in a situation that I was worried that I was going to die. Even less of those times did I actually die. I believe my death count throughout the course of the game was about 10. Most of these were due to miss understanding of the levels layout or a lack of cover when being fired on by ranged bots. This could have probably been avoided had I used Trip's distract action more often.

Graphically, I can not praise this game enough on the level design and artwork that really brings this post apocalyptic environment to life. I am however, a bit disappointed in the amount of texture popping that occurs during the cut scenes. The game was developed on the Unreal III engine and the age of the tech shows. However, I have played quite a few games on the Unreal III tech that didn't have this problem quite as bad. Perhaps it was an issue over texture quality and loading time. I would have rather opted for a longer load time and waiting for cleaner cut scenes than to see textures pop during the middle of a cut scene camera transition.

Overall, I was very pleased with the game. The witty dialog made for an enjoyable play through. It was far too easy as I had stated, probably good for someone who is new to the action/adventure platforming titles. The title is a bit short, however, there is a bit of re-playability as you can return to previous chapters to collect tech orbs and masks as well as re-attempt to beat some of the speed based missions for achievements or trophies. I would have to give the game a 7.5/10 though for the issues stated above.

Tower Assault! Curse of Zombie Island

Working with Rogue Pirate Ninja Interactive LLC, we have completed our IPhone title, "Tower Assault! Curse of Zombie Island". We are very proud and excited to bring this game to the app store for purchase. You can purchase it here or from your IPhone or IPod Touch device.

Tower Assault! Curse of Zombie Island is a reverse TD style game where you control a horde of zombie pirates against the forces of an Evil Witch Doctor who has stolen your pirate loot and cursed your crew. You control them by firing brains out of a cannon.

The goal of the game was to provide small bite sized levels that varied in the goals and difficulty as the game progressed. We didn't want to make a simple puzzle style game though and have weaved a story of revenge into the over all game play.

I hope that you try Tower Assault! Curse of Zombie Island and enjoy it. I should have more time to start posting again now that the work on this title is complete, so look forward to that as well.

Recent Work, Lua Love, and My Weekend Retreat

It has been a while since I updated. Been a hectic February, life moves too fast and work is a pain at times. I had to pull an all nighter last Thursday to get a demo finished. I would normally have just asked for more time but this was my project and really my ass on the line. I wrote the research paper that was behind it, not really expecting the funding to come through and when it did, I got the work. I was very proud of the work I did but damn it was a struggle.

The project involved Lua, which I must say after working with Lua in both C and C# integration. I like C# much better. The .Net version of Lua integration is extremely easy to work with and the ability for C# to have attributes which can be put to use in registering exposed functions to Lua is a dream compared to working with Swig or writing your own function wrappers. I learned a lot though, about Lua and about C. I consider myself a good C programmer, a professional if you will, but there is never a shortage of things to learn. This project really stretched my expertise in DLL handling in windows in a C environment (not for Lua but still, I learned it because of this Lua project).

It is interesting to note that a DLL can be loaded into the program space more than once. Mind you this is generally not a good method of doing things, but sometimes a necessary evil. Care must be made though that DLLs are not loaded from multiple copies of the same DLL in the file system. All references to a DLL should be made on the same DLL file. If you do not you will give yourself problems because it will actually load two copies into program space and when you expect the DLL to have global variables that are maintained in the program space environment you will be rudely awakened to find that those global variables in your other DLL are in fact different than the ones you expect them to be.

Another interesting thing I picked up last week was the use of Lua userdata types. These data types are used to represent "objects" in Lua that are not considered one of the standard primitive types. These can be anything from C structs or pointers to C++, C#, or Java objects. It is basically just a pointer to memory in the Lua environment. The tricky things about these datatypes is that you can not create them in the Lua environment. You can only receive them from the main application. Thus the use of these data types are heavily reliant on the host application, functions that receive a pointer to something must be represented as a userdata type and not the primitive that it points to (if it is a pointer to a primitive of course). This obviously can cause some issues, especially when generating interfaces to pre-existing libraries. I found that Swig is not so good at handling this, so care had to be taken to fix some of my wrappings. Also, typedefs can be a cause of torment when dealing with Swig if the typedefs are not included in the header that is being "Swigged". The reason for this is that Swig thinks that these typedefs need to be represented as a userdata type which can cause problems when working with things like handles.

Finally, it should be mentioned that applications that use functions that have output parameters are also a very complicated issue when working with Lua. Lua has no concept of pass by reference. It only allows pass by value and as a result, any pointer passed to the function, when converted to a Lua wrap, is treated as a userdata type. Very inconvenient when Lua has a perfectly good multi-return mechanism built into the language. In fact this is so good that great care must be made to utilize it, unfortunately Swig once again fails at this because it does not know what is an input parameter and what is an output parameter. Now I don't know if I am just too thick skulled to know how to use Swig in all its faceted feature set, but I handled this by brute force modification of my generated Lua wrappings. I feel like modifying these wrappings not only gave me more control over what was being done in each function, but also provided better functionality and ensured that each function was being generated correctly. It took a bit more time but I was happier with the results, and I was able to fix all of the issues that possibly would have gone undetected for a few weeks, or months, or years, until those functions were used by a scripter.

Overall, I still love Lua, I think it is one of the best scripting languages out there. It is easy to use (on the scripting side of things) and not overly complicated to integrate. I was able to get scripts executing within a matter of two hours at the most, much can be said for that. The demo was a success and I am very excited to say that I was able to secure additional funding to continue my work. My managers were happy and thus I was happy. Glory day!

Oh and I beat Dante's Inferno this weekend... also a bonus, saw the anime for Dante's Inferno I was not impressed, more just a retelling of the game storyline. I think EA did a better job with Viceral when they made the Deadspace anime for that games release. It added something to the story that was not in the game. I also am not a fan of anime where they have a handful of different studios with different art styles writing different parts of one story. The change in art style confuses me, not that I am dumb, it just makes my eyes readjust to the changes in color pallets and the character movements. I hope to write a review on Dante's Inferno to finish up the trillogy of reviews (First Impression, First Look, and Overall review) but life is killer and I am super busy looking for a new job, planning my wedding, working at my current job, and working on side projects. As a result the blog always seems to fall to the back burner. Well... back to watching some anime before bed, and back to the grind tomorrow.

Game Review - Prince of Persia : Ubisoft : PS3

The latest game I recently played (skipping a few others I have played and not had time to review) is Prince of Persia for the PS3 by Ubisoft. Now this game is an older title for this generation, circa 2008, however I believe that this game still holds up compared to its big brother Assassin's Creed II (is that the right term since its newer?).

Not surprisingly the main characters move very similarly and the games hold much in common for game play styles. Prince of Persia is very much a platformer in the sense that AC and ACII are. Most of the game revolves around climbing very complicated structures and obstacles to reach very high points in each level.

The Good:
Prince of Persia does platformers like they should be done. The obstacles are not complicated to figure out what you are suppose to do, however still provide a good challenge. The game has 4 types of special "plates" that are opened up only by collecting enough "light seeds" which are scattered around the environment. These are only available once you have healed the land in an area. The plates that are opened up provide access to additional areas to heal. The plates also require you to perform some kind of feat, such as the green plates allow you to run on walls, however the slightest bump and you will be sent back to the last successful platform you managed to land on. 

Story in the game was decent, it was driven mostly by very witty humor between the two main characters. This dialog was optional which is something I have not seen very often in games, it was controlled by pressing the L2 button on the controller and could be pressed as often as you liked. Certainly there were only so many worthwhile dialog sections, but the Prince was never short of cynical one-liners to say. I was surprised at how much of the games dialog was wrapped around the Prince trying to get in the Princesses knickers. I found this quite amusing, and her retorts were even more amusing, it created a chemistry that I have seen few games pull off. 

To top off these high points, I found it interesting Ubisoft's approach to deaths in the game. It becomes quickly apparent that you can not technically die in the game. Any time that the Prince would fall or would be killed by an enemy, your companion is there to save you. This is not overly cheap or simple in my opinion when it comes to the platforming, however I found it quite unrealistic in fighting the bosses in the game. Saving you does however give enemies a chance to heal so in that regard it wasn't completely unfair. 

The Bad: 
The ending, I won't spoil it for anyone who is going to play the game after reading this, but I will say that I just was not impressed. I felt that the end of the story was predicable (for me from the beginning) and was designed in such a way to simply anger you. I feel almost as if that is Ubisoft's motives in games is to make the players so angry at the ending of games that they must play the sequels to the titles just so that they can relieve some tension towards the franchise. I have felt the same emotion at the end of BOTH Assassin's Creed games. 

I am also not a fan of how they are selling the Epilogue to the game, a two hour "extra" level as DLC for 10 bucks... an Epilogue? DLC in my opinion should never have anything to do with main plot in a game. I think it should only include additional side quests and fun multiplayer content. I payed for the game, and I would pay for a sequel, but an extra 10 bucks just to see the end of the game, and not the crappy one that they gave me but a real freaking ending???!!! That's robbery in my opinion and I am not going to put out for that. Games like Elderscrolls Oblivion, or Fallout 3, or GTA, I can see having additional plot line as these titles are not strictly tied to their predecessors in the series. The stories stand alone on their own and presumably so will their iterations. Adding main story to these games expand their worth. Granted Ubisoft has not released another Prince of Persia in the story line, and from the looks of it, the next title in the series will not be continuing this plot line, so perhaps a DLC expansion isn't inexcusable, but a 10 dollar two hour one is.

Ah fighting... so important in many games, not Prince of Persia. Combat is sparse and only moderately exciting. The combo system is nice and the use of your partner's magical abilities to link longer combos together is somewhat innovative. Her use of magic does however remove the use of the triangle button for the Prince's abilities, so really more of a gimmick to seem innovative when they could have just given the magical powers to your character instead. Also, it seemed that as the enemies got tougher, gaining the ability to shapeshift which required you to perform only certain types of attacks, it seemed that even if you used that type of attack on them at times you still could not hit them. Their ability to block attacks is legendary, making for sometimes extremely long fights. 

Finally, I hate being analog screwed. If the reader is not familiar with this term, it is the act of trying to tell your character to do one thing but he/she/it does something else because of the slight variation in camera angle vs. analog stick angle. This game (and Assassin's Creed titles) are notoriously bad about this. There were many times that I expected the character to run straight up a wall, instead I got a wall run, only there would be no place to wall run to... frustrating.

Overall: 
Prince of Persia was a good game. I would give it an 8.5/10. Platforming is key in any good platformer and I think that Ubisoft is one of the best at what they do. I really commend the voice acting work that was done on this title and I would love to see more games take a similar approach. I still don't like the price of the DLC and I don't expect it to change, I guess I will just read a synopsis online... oh well. 

Downloads - PC : Final Odyssey - My First Full Title

I can't believe they put it back up, Final Odyssey. This is the game that I was responsible for when I was working with Husky Games in college. It is a top down space shooter. The game was developed over the course of 2 years from the hard work and dedication to students in our Enterprise program. It was all done with spare time and late nights.

You can download the game here, as well as other titles that the current generation of Enterprise program students are working on. I encourage you to download it and check it out. I actually have a copy in a DVD case with a full color printed manual that I received as a Lead Programmer on the project. Receiving that game in its case completed and sitting on my shelf made me cry the day I got it as it has always been my dream to have a full title on my shelf with my name on it. Yes I just admitted that I cried...

Anyways, here is a screen shot of the game in action. The manual for the game is included with the install.

The game was never polished as much as I had hoped it would have been before I left. It was released pretty much as is the semester after I graduated. The Enterprise moved on afterwords since none of the original developers were still with the organization. It is still fun to go fly around and shoot stuff for a while. It brings back a lot of nostalgic memories seeing it again. I hope people find it interesting enough to check out. 

Game Review - Canabalt : IPhone : Adamatomic

Another game that I have played recently that I would like to cover is actually a mobile title. The game is called Canabalt. I originally heard of this title through twitter, it was posted as a twitter score with a link to the developers website where they provide the game for free to play.

The game was an developed in 5 days with a focus on simple designs with minimal feature sets. I think that Canabalt meets these requirements very well. The premise of the game is that you are a runner that runs on top of roofs in a parkour fasion (immediately sounds like Mirror's Edge). The feel of the game is dark and grey, so immediately you assume without any sort of back story that your main character is running from something. The art in the game includes a desolate city with battling robots in the background and flyby spacecraft that attempt to kill you by dropping bombs onto roof tops.

Controls in the game are simple, touch the play field to make your runner jump, touch it longer and your runner will jump higher. As your runner progresses, he gets faster, the speed in the game will build to a mind numbing speed that makes survival difficult and thus provides the challenge. Hitting obstacles such as boxes and chairs will cause you to slow down and if slowed down too much, makes it impossible to clear some gaps in the game. Play continues until you die. Your score is determined by how far you were able to run. Scores can be posted on twitter with a cute quote describing the cause of your death.

The Good:

The game is challenging, it is extremely difficult once you reach a certain speed. The hardest things I have found is that some buildings you have to jump into a hallway through a window. I find myself often jumping to high on these obstacles and hitting the wall instead of the window. Honestly, I believe that the challenge of the game is what makes it addicting.

I also appreciate the simple interface as well as the concise game mechanic feature set. The game is not cluttered with unnecessary features which is appreciated. Also, given that the game is a non-zero sum game (for those of you who are familiar with game theory), the fact that the game challenges you by driving you to reach a never ending increasing score based solely on your skill as a runner provides a non-stress inducing game play. This differs to games that have a definitive ending and a final goal. The Germans are big fans of non-zero sum games, games such as monopoly, which is a zero sum game, are not played as much by the Germans as they find it too competitive and find that cooperation is more satisfying than backstabbing. I honestly have to agree, games where additional resources are injected into the environment provide more options for players and creates a more diverse strategy. 

To get back on track, Canabalt also strikes my fancy due to the art design in the game, simple and elegant, yet hints at a more complex and deeper meaning to the world that is constructed by its blacks and grays. I think that the animations are smooth and transition well. It makes me wish that there was a graphic novel based on the game that would explain what the runner is running from and where he is going. What are the robots in the background? Who is the organization that is after you and what other technologies are they hiding besides giant fighting robots and spacecraft with big crazy bombs that turn you into a fine mist. This game I think could inspire some great fan fiction for those with that interest who like cyberpunk story writing. (If there is any out there based on Canabalt, someone post the link in the comments to this post, it would be greatly appreciated.)

The Bad:

I honestly have little to say that is bad about Canabalt. I think the game is well designed and even better implemented and executed. I think the only major issues I have are the random generator of the buildings. Sometimes this will generate random levels that are almost impossible to get through (actually I think sometimes they are impossible). I hate games that create deaths that feel cheap, especially when you have a really good score and you feel like you could keep going for a while, and for no apparent reason a gap between buildings are impossibly far apart.

The only other issue is actually the location of the twitter your score button. It is right where I tend to touch the screen to jump and as a result, I have more than once submitted scores that I would not have submitted to twitter. Nothing is more embarrassing than twittering a pitifully low score of 173km, ok there may be a few more things that are more embarrassing than this, but I still feel that there might be a better location for this button.

Overall:

I must say that Canabalt is by far one of the best IPhone App games on the marketplace. After playing the flash based one online, I had no problem paying the 2.99 for the game to have it with me anywhere I go. I think that this game would not have been so popular and successful were it not for the fact that the IPhone still has no flash player for its web browser, as it being free to play online would defeat the purpose of purchasing the app from the store. I am not saying that it is excusable for Apple to restrict the flash player for safari mobile, but I am saying that this has provided an interesting mechanic of advertising games for the IPhone platform that I would like to see other developers take advantage of. By allowing people to use your app on a webpage, it makes it feel more like a try before you buy situation. I think that many developers try to do this with a "Free" or "Light" version of the app on the store, but I find myself using the free or light version and never buying the full version because the free or light version is sufficient for my needs and that the extra pay for bells and whistles are just not worth the money. I still can not believe this game was developed in 4 days, it's just phenomenal.

Check out Canabalt here.

What Happened To Scores in Games

I know I have been doing a lot of game reviews lately on the site, but this time I would like to talk about a design decision that I think is something that has subtly changed in games over the last 5-10 years.

High Scores in games...

Looking back over my game collection, this is one thing that has gradually been removed from games as time has progressed. I think a large part of this is the gamer points and trophy system that the new consoles have provided players. Now it is not so much about high scores, it is about number of gamer points and trophies that you have collected. We have turned into a society of completion gamers, trying to achieve a 100% goal everytime, instead of the society of competitive gamers that we once were, striving for a higher and higher score.

I believe the root cause of this is that the arcade environment is no longer a common meeting place for gamers, where people can come together in a dark, slightly smelly room, and compete head to head for a coveted place on a high score list. To see ones initials displayed in technicolor glory for the world to see on a publicly displayed system was once a grand achievement.

On one hand I think it could be argued that this has improved the design of games and has taught us that not every game needs to be about competition against others, that co-op missions and single player campaigns can provide better entertainment value. However, with the number of multiplayer deathmatch shooter games out there, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 being the most recent in the long chain of these to come to market, that the level of competition is still there. I noticed that even though the game had been out for only 3 weeks, there were those that had been playing the multiplayer aspect of that game for  a total play time of 15 days. That would require you to play for almost every waking minute given an eight hour sleeping cycle each night.

The thing is, games like CoD MW2 still have a point system. Characters have a kill count and a death count. Also, CoD has added a leveling system to multiplayer that allow people to rank against each other. Thus I argue that games like these still require scoring, even if the score is no longer arbitrary. Also by providing these scores available to everyone who owns the game, we still see the display of personal prowess and skill to the greater public. It could almost be said that non-arbitrary point systems, such as experience or leveling has improved game design in a competitive sense.

I think there is still a place for arbitrary scoring though in the game space, the place I see this is with social networking games, or games that provide interfaces for score display to communities such as Facebook and Twitter. Games such as Canabalt and Bejeweled can be used as good examples of this. Bejeweled displaying scores of those in Bejeweled Blitz group being able to compare scores directly on Facebook, or Canabalt, with its option to post your high score (or low score if the case may be) to Twitter directly after dying.

Being that for the most part, I am a single player game type of gamer, I find myself being left out of these situations for the most part. The competition is not a driving factor for me, and as a result I tend to measure completion of games by their storylines. On the other hand, games such as racing games and platformers, I would actually appreciate a score. Regardless of the fact that I am not playing against anyone, I think that by having a score, I am in essence playing against myself. That competition keeps a game more enjoyable for longer. While playing Guitar Hero, the only reason I kept playing that game was because I could physically see myself getting better by the amount of points I would receive for a given song or the percentage I could complete before losing decreasing as I learned the patterns. The same holds true for my self admitting addiction to Dance Dance Revolution when I worked in an arcade for a while. By breaking my previous high score, I am in essence beating a game again that although it has not changed as far as story line or character development, has become more challenging.

Another method that could be said scores game progress is collectables. In platformers especially this holds true. Games such as the Sly Cooper series, or Ratchet and Clank, Jax and Daxter, even Assassin's Creed, has a system in place for tracking your completion progress throughout the game via collectables. Any game that says you have collected 50/100 , whether it be gems, flags, bobble heads, what have you, is indicating a score. This score is the percentage of the game you have completed. Granted, with the new trophy system/achievement system on the modern consoles, these tend to correlate with awards for 100% collection in modern games, but the in game mechanic itself provides the challenge that a player would normally associate with achieving a higher score. 

Overall, I must say that I believe that scores in games are not gone, they have just evolved. We may have become a society of completionists, and in some cases non-completionists when it comes to not having the patience to collect everything in a game, but is this really a bad thing? I would argue that perhaps not. The high score in a game may only be 100%, but 100% still feels good.

Hands On - Bayonetta : PS3 : Platinum Games

For another demo post, I hit up Bayonetta on the PS3. I saw previews for this game about 8 months ago I think, when the first trailer was posted on the Playstation Network. Being a fan of the original Devil May Cry and hearing that Hideki Kamyia was directing the game, I thought I would check it out. I have to say that I was a bit taken aback by the original trailer. With Bayonetta's outlandish one liners and the speed at which her clothes come off, I thought I was looking at a game with the maturity level of a 7th grader.

Then the demo came out, as well as a few articles that I read in Game Informer and on various review sites. Reviews looked promising and in game screen shots looked really nice.

The first demo that I got to see was actually on a friends XBox 360, which I don't know if it is different than the PS3 version, but it included a fighting sequence that I did not see on the PS3. The scene was of Bayonetta jumping from crumbling block to crumbling block of a very large building as it was falling from a cliff that never seemed to end. All meanwhile fighting a hoard of angel like monsters that never seemed to stop coming. That demo was a bit challenging to follow and left me with a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. I had heard that the game was going to be designed to be extremely difficult, and that demo definitely gave me that impression, not so much from the difficulty of the fights, but just the shear amount of stuff that was going on in the scene.

It was quite cinematic however and transitions from jumping  from one block to the next was well executed in my opinion. It felt fluid and the camera never seemed to get in the way, which is a primary complaint that I tend to have with cinematic transitions like that. The cinematic feel alone would not have given me enough reason to pick up this title, but when I saw the demo was available for the PS3 on the Playstation Network, I decided to give it another chance.

So this is where I think the demos are different, the PS3 version never gives you a scene where you fight while falling down a cliff. Also, on the XBox 360 version, although I didn't play it, I didn't see the tutorial portion that was provided at the beginning of the PS3 version. The levels that were provided beyond the tutorial on the PS3, included a train sequence, followed by fighting some enemies within a futuristic train station. These lead to a boss fight with a large angel like beast with the head of a statue. This fight was entertaining and had some interesting button pressing sequences to avoid being obliterated. Once you survive this, another video sequence plays that shows a bit of Bayonetta's past. Once again, cinematography is good, and Bayonetta talks a bit more during this sequence leading me to hope that her character isn't as shallow as you are first led to believe. Post cut scene leaves you to fight another witch in a head to head fight that shows off the ability to perform "witch walk" which basically lets you walk on walls.

What I saw from the demo, the game was not as challenging as I had originally believed. I was able to beat the demo without dying once, something I was not expecting to be able to accomplish. Controls in standard fights felt comfortable if not a bit repetitive. There are some things about the controls I do like quite a bit. Rotating the analog stick and performing an attack makes Bayonetta pull her guns and fire in an aimed barrage that looks nice and the transformations of her limbs look very clean when this is going on. It feels very organic and realistic (other than the fact she is shooting guns with her feet). I am not a fan of the witch walk ability as this felt cumbersome to cancel when you have to press R3 to release the walk, but only while you are in mid jump. Transitioning from one wall to the next is as simple as running, but trying to transition to the floor is not allowed unless you perform this jump + press R3 action. This was very confusing at first, even provided with the popup instructions on performing the move.

Overall, I am a bit on the fence as to whether or not this game will be worth a purchase. I may have to rent this one for a night to give it a go. Given how short the original Devil May Cry was (I have not played the others so I can say anything for them), if this is anything like it, it may be too short to warrant anything more than a rental (maybe two rentals?)

Hands On - Dante's Inferno : PS3 : Visceral

I got a chance to check out the Dante's Inferno demo, available now from the Playstation Network. I must say, at first I was skeptical for Dante's Inferno, read my "First Look" article for my reasonings as to why. They mostly revolved around my reasonable fear that Dante's Inferno was going to just be a God of War rip off.

I was wrong.

The game is amazingly cinematic. Granted that God of War is similar in its cinematic feel, Dante's goes over the top in cinematography to bring a level of suspense that I do not think any of the God of War games has been able to approach. Levels are constantly shifting and becoming more and more chaotic. In the demo, you play in a church on the approach to the gates of hell. This church is basically crumbling into a giant pit of fire and brimstone, one wrong step or wait to long and you're toast.

The thing that has me really excited in Dante's Inferno is the choices you can make between good and evil. When destroying enemies, if you grab them you have the choice of "Punish" or "Absolve", doing either will gain you experience points, however whether for good or evil is the question. Now, leveling up the good through absolving allows you to level up your cross attacks. Cross attacks are ranged attacks using the power of holy light. Punishing the undead will allow you to level your scythe abilities for the scythe you take (forcefully I might add) from the grim reaper at the beginning of the demo.

The premise of the game (at least as far as the demo explains) is that you play Dante, a crusader who is returning from Jerusalem after taking part in the atrocities that take place there. However the difference is that you should have never had the chance to return home. After being stabbed in the back, the Grim Reaper comes to take you to hell. Dante wants no part of this, so instead decides to kick the Grim Reapers ass and take his weapon. After some painful self mutilation where Dante sows a moving piece of flesh to his chest (which they don't discuss much of in the demo, but my hope is that they will explain that part in the main game), he arrives home to find his lover murdered. After releasing her spirit from her half naked corpse, her fully naked soul is ripped from Dante by some dark spirit with her message "I must go, I promised." Thus we begin our play through of the standard level that we hope to experience in the main game.

Mechanics for the game are enjoyable, easy to use, and quite graphic. I am looking forward to seeing the higher level attacks that can be performed by Dante. Enemies are not simply for killing either apparently, as the end of the level shows the ability to mount a giant minotaur looking demon, controlling it to stomp, smash, eat and scorch the other various smaller enemies around it. In true God of War style, mounting the beast involves a series of timed button presses, of which I did not fail to meet the first time. Either I am getting better at these types of sequences, or the timing is not that strict. We shall see if this changes in the actual game.

I was surprised as to how much nudity there is in the game. This will definitely not be a game you let your kids play or even watch. I am hoping that with the creative level design I have seen thus far, that the remaining game will continue to bring the level of dramatic flare that they have shown thus far. I am also hoping that the game will provide a level of horror that I have not seen since Silent Hill and the early days of Resident Evil. I am guessing in that department I will be out of luck, however, as stated, there will be no shortage of gratuitous digital nudity.

I have definitely changed my opinion of Dante's Inferno after getting some hands on play time with the game. I am looking forward to its release. I am hoping that the game will have enough content to keep me busy for a while to make it worth the money. I don't think I will be waiting a year for the price to drop on this one. As a result it is going to be pricy, so a short game would be disappointing.

Game Review - Mirror's Edge : PS3 : Dice

It's been a while since I posted, I have been super busy. Actually by super busy I mean I have been working and playing video games. I have not been on my computer much as a result. I have quite a bit of material for reviews now though so I should be able to catch up on my posts in the next week or so.

The first game I would like to review is Mirror's Edge. I picked up Mirror's Edge at Walmart for twenty bucks. A good deal in my opinion, I really do love Walmart's discount bins.  Mirror's Edge was released on  November 14th, 2008. The game is a first person shooter type game with a twist, instead of your standard military guy carrying lots of guns, blasting away anything that moves. Mirror's Edge you play the role of Faith, an appropriate name given that she is a "Runner", or a person who is an avid parkour messenger. For those who are not familiar with this sport, it involves jumping from roof top to roof top and performing death defying stunts. There are many times in the game where it feels like you just have to take a leap of faith and thus why I believe Dice chose that name for the character. Dice has definitely done a good job with Mirror's Edge in simulating the parkour experience. The gameplay experience of running and jumping and climbing twenty stories high is an adrenalin building experience definitely worth twenty bucks. 

The Good:

As I first mentioned, the parkour engine is extremely well done in my opinion. Mechanics controlling Faith's climbing, running and jumping are easy to pick up and are surprisingly versatile. Once you get used to the control scheme, making Faith do what you want is mostly just point and press with the majority of your moves being done via the R1 and R2 buttons. 

The environment is also well executed for the genera of the title. It is great to see a game that takes a different direction in the first person genera other than dark dingy dungeons and desert cities. The world of Mirror's Edge is a clean sparkling city that well suits its dark underlying story of betrayal. Clean rooftops which are mostly white except for the occasional red or yellow which is designed to guide you through the level towards where your next objective is. This is what Dice has labeled as "Runner Vision" and is only available in the easy and normal difficulty settings. This is useful to get used to the levels as the game is extremely difficult on the first run through. Some would say that this difficulty that requires you to attempt the same section of a level 10 to 20 times before being successful as a deficiency in the level design or pacing of the levels, however in Mirror's Edge it is very satisfying when you are finally able to perform some jump or defeat some set of enemy challenges that the designers have placed in your path after about 45 minutes of attempting it. Generally deaths in the game I found did not feel cheap as some deaths in difficult games can. 

I think that one of the reasons for the difficulty of the game is that Mirror's Edge, although could be placed in the first person shooter genera due to its inclusion of guns, is really not your typical shooter. Your character does not carry weapons standard, and the only weapons that you can get are those that you take from your enemies. The use of the weapons also have a debilitating effect on Faith's ability to run or jump, which given her size as a eurasian female, makes a reasonable amount of sense. 

Story in the game was quite enjoyable in my opinion, if not a bit predictable. The cut scenes art style was interesting, done in a 2d vector art style. I actually think that those were done in 3d with cell shading to make them look cartooned. 

Finally, I also think that the music that they chose was very modern and appropriate, and it provided a great ambience to the setting. I am actually considering buying the soundtrack if I can find it. 

The Bad:

For everything in Mirror's Edge that I thought they did well, I think there is equally something that they could have improved. For starters, the mechanic of taking weapons away from the enemy is a bit rough around the edges to say the least. The time given when the weapon turns red in which you can attempt to take their weapon is a bit to short in my opinion. You can however slow down time but if you grab to early, it is basically lights out for Faith. 

It was brought to my attention by a friend of mine that was playing my copy of Mirror's Edge right after I beat it myself, that sometimes when you miss grabbing someone's weapon, if you mash the triangle button (the one used to grab), about half the time Faith will take the weapon anyways. It is usually really amusing to see this happen as it messes up the "smooth" animation change from a swing to a grab. 

The fighting engine in general seems a bit rough around the edges in my opinion. I did like the fact that weapons were not Faith's primary skill, but it seems that sometimes it was just impossible to not fight people. I think that the level designs should have given more options to avoid fighting as this seems like a primary feature of the game, almost an ethical choice that sometimes is unavoidable. 

I would have liked to see the levels that didn't have enemies be a part of the original game instead of downloadable content. It seems a bit ridiculous that you would need to spend additional money to remove content from levels. In this age of micro-transactions in games, it does not surprise me that a company such as Dice, backed by big time publisher EA would go this route to make additional sales from the game.  I still feel that this is a disservice to the fans and consumers and that if they had provided truly additional content, then it would have been worth the money.

Predictability in the story line was also a bit of a let down for me. I enjoyed the world that the developers constructed, but I felt that plot twists were a bit telegraphed and that left them a bit anticlimactic. I would love to see a sequel to this title as I felt the end was also quite anticlimactic and felt too much like a cliff hanger without trying to be one. A lack of a wrap up to the "lose ends" in the conspiracy left me feeling like the game should not have ended the way it did.  As of the time of this writing, it is the case that EA has announced the future development of a sequel to the title. 

Overall:

In overall, for a while i was not sure if I liked Mirror's Edge. I did immediately enjoy the mechanics of the parkour, but was unsure of the fighting in the game as well as the quickly ramped difficulty level. However, once I started getting past areas that I found extremely difficult, the satisfaction of beating it was, in my opinion, worth the effort. On a second play through of some of the levels, I felt that the game was much easier since I knew the right paths and the right methods of getting through the obstacles. I was also much better at the fighting. I think this improved my impression of the title as a whole. I think once you are familiar with all the levels, it might even be possible to complete a run through of the title in about 2-3 hours. It would be interesting to see what the fastest speed run of this title is. 

Overall, I think I would have to give this game a favorable review, not perfect by any means, but for the twenty bucks I paid for it, well worth its value. I would say that the replay value is also high, which I think helps the games review in my opinion. I will probably play the sequel when it comes out, and I hope that they are able to improve on the game without corrupting its original vision with feature creep.

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.  

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!)

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.

A Few Site Changes - Games I Own List

Added a few changes to the site today. I added a list of PS3 Games that I own. I will try to keep this current as I acquire more titles. Sorry, I don't own an XBox, and I don't really plan on getting one since almost every title that I want to play is either on PS3 or computer.

If you also own one of these titles for PS3, and you feel like playing some multiplayer, you can get a hold of me on the Play Station Network at DKGameStudios. Or just drop me a line at my email address (or a comment here) letting me know your user name and I'll add you to my friends list.

Happy Gaming!

Game Review - Final Fantasy Dissidia : PSP : SquareEnix

It's finally here! Final Fantasy Dissidia for PSP. I feel like such a fanboy, Monday night I stood in line at GameStop waiting till midnight on a work night, for my copy just so could get the special GameStop exclusive collectors edition slip cases. Got to love some pretty cardboard that makes you do stupid things.

Here is a picture of the packaging with the slip cases:

As you can see, the game case comes with a reversible case sleeve. One side depicting the Heros of the Final Fantasy franchise, the other depicting the villains. I really think this game is a real great fan service on the part of SquareEnix. They have really done an impressive job on the packaging. The thing I noticed most was the lack of focus on Cloud or Sephiroth in both the game and the packaging. I think that SquareEnix is really committed to all of their great characters in this title and that is apparent by not giving any of them more cover space than then rest. 

The game is beautiful. It actually surprised me there was no flashy intro video. I was actually scared at first when all I got was an in-game clip of the Warrior of the Light at the beginning. Not the best graphics, on par really for the PSP in-game graphics and pretty much what I expected for dialog sequences in a SquareEnix game. But for a first video, the first sample of the sweet sweet amazing experience I have come to expect and love about the Final Fantasy franchise? Well, I was not let down. After the first little prologue tutorial, you are brought to the ACTUAL main interface for the game, with options like "Story Mode" "Arcade Mode" and "Dual Colosseum". Selecting story mode, I was blown away. A fully rendered clip that I was hoping for appeared. Some of you may have seen this video before release as I think this was one of the videos (or at least clips from it) that was released at an earlier showing by SquareEnix to promote the title. Regardless, it brought some tears to my eyes believe it or not. To see all of my favorite characters brought together in a single title, I was excited, but to see them in full rendering together for the first time ever in the 20 years that the franchise has been in production. That I believe is a true fan service to a dedicated community.  It was about 2-3 minutes long and was spectacularly action packed. The best part was not a single time in the clip did Cloud and Sephiroth cross swords. In fact, I am not sure, but I don't think any of the matching heros/villains attack each other in the video (intentional? hmmmm...). 

For actual game play, I am happy to say I really am enjoying it so far. I have not had TOO much time to play the game, as I am still in Grand Rapids at my home office, on a tight schedule on the current project I am working on. This is my last week here and I am having to put in the over time to get our release done in time. This saddens me of course as I would love to just sit here all day and get through a few of the individual characters story lines. Yes, story lines, plural. There are 10 hero story lines to complete (I am assuming that there will be 10 villain story lines to complete as well once all 10 hero story lines are completed. Ok maybe I'm just hoping) and I am on the first one as of right now. 

I was originally concerned about SquareEnix making a "Fighting" game about Final Fantasy. I am not disappointed though, on the contrary, I am very pleased. It really feels like an action game mixed with the RPG elements that make Final Fantasy what it is. Nothing is really lost in the translation, and in fact it feels very much like Final Fantasy XII in a one on one sort of setting. The board concept is interesting, and I am still trying to get used to the DP system that is used for determining bonuses for the level. 

The game definitely does not lack for all the small little systems that are built into each state of the game. Every screen it seems is loaded with all of these little components or mechanics that use the common set of stats from your characters base stats to the number of battles you have partaken in. An achievements list in the game is loaded with stuff to beat, numbers to push for. It's almost like each time you play the game you can strive for different goals, minimizing turns used, completing as many battles in a calendar day as you can, or trying to get every item in every map. Speaking of calendars, this is my favorite mechanic so far. The game actually uses the day of the week to determine special bonuses and effects that change the way the game is played. This is a great concept, modify difficulty and rewards based on the day of the week. Even more interesting is that the player gets to choose one day during the week that is their "Special Day" where bonuses are increased. This is asked when you make your profile as to what day you play the most. This day is marked in the calendar in game as a special day when you are in the mognet area of the main menu. Another of the great mechanics is the chocobo walk. In the customize menu, a screen is displayed with a chocobo either sleeping, walking, or flying. As you progress through battles, the chocobo will move along the scene. The more battles you fight, the farther he gets. Depending on your difficulty path, that distance changes. If he reaches the end, you get a special item. For the hardest difficulty, it takes 60 battles to reach the target, the kicker is that these battles must be performed in a single 24 hour period, or the chocobo will go back to sleep at the beginning of the path (Fun Fun). Other bonuses are awarded based on other things the chocobo can find along the path. This really adds a little more variability to the game and is really ingenious.

Finally, as a design point, I think it is great that they have drawn on all of the old art work from the last 20 years of gaming. Each help menu uses different images, character portraits, character images, and item portraits straight out of the original games. All of the characters from the series are there. I saw a picture of Steiner already, and he told me how to equip weapons. This really helps fill out the games feel in my opinion, as well as I think alleviate some of the complaints that I know have been going around about not including one character or another as a playable character. 

Of course, all artwork in the pictures above belong to SquareEnix (God bless). I take no credit except for the "Wonderful" pictures to show off the sweet artwork on the cases. Sorry for the quality, I took them with my IPhone in my Hotel room which is not all that well lit. 

If you have the game and are looking for people to play online with, drop me an email at crsteinb@gmail.com. I don't really know anyone else with a PSP that has the game, so I would definitely be willing to try out the multiplayer with someone. If you don't have the game... WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR??? Go go buy it now!

Dante's Inferno - First Impressions

I perused the EA site today after listening to one of the podcasts that have been done by EA and Visceral. They had mentioned that they were working on the Dante's Inferno title, and the thought of making a game based on that old literature intrigues me. I think it is a fascinating concept and setting for the type of game that they are making. Looking at the game play footage, I have no doubt that the title will be fun to play.

The game play, reminiscent of God of War or Heavenly Sword, looks to be fast pace and action packed. However, my concern is that like the other two titles mentioned, it will be a button smashing game with no real strategy to the attacks. Although, the attacks may look nice and pretty, these types of games tend to bore me after a while, and usually end up causing me some hand cramping. I generally prefer a little more strategy in my combat, titles such as Hitman, Mad World, or The Mark of Kri. All of these titles did more than just provide a button mashing kill fest. However the game did provide a brutal feel that I think that many new games are going for. The difference is that even though the brutality of these titles were present, it wasn't mindless killing (well, its pretty mindless in Mad World, however the fighting system led more to some quick thinking to perform the brutal kill you were going for that would provide you with more points).

Hitman and Mark of Kri relied more on assassination, the silent kill, to complete the mission. These allowed you to avoid the all out frenzy of being detected, and rewarding you as such for doing so. The interesting thing is that these titles also still allowed you to experience the frenzy of many on one combat, and did not really punish you if you wanted to run through the mission and be detected by everyone. I think that Assassins Creed tried to have this mix, but I felt as I played it that it was not very good at allowing you to do the stealth kills as well as I would have originally expected. At times it felt clunky and what would seem like an obvious kill would go unnoticed, where as a well planned and executed kill sometimes set off alarms.

I am hoping that Dante's Inferno will have a good balance of the brutal combo kill, button smashing, and the strategic areas where more skill and finesse is required. I am realizing that game developers, with their multimillion dollar budgets, have a need and desire to appease a wider audience of gamers, and providing "easy to understand" control schemes goes a long way to doing this, and by uncomplicating the combat system also pushes a game into more hands. I just feel as if players who wish to learn complex combat systems and strive for perfection in their gaming are being ignored due to them being in a much smaller demographic. I mean, where are games like the old Tenchu?

Game Review - Time Hollow : NDS : Konami

So, its been a while since I reviewed a DS game, probably since it's been a while since I bought a DS game and played it. However, I did pick up this game, and was pleasantly surprised. The reason I got it was because it looked like an anime for one. The other reason was that it reminded me of the old Kings Quest style of point and click adventure games that I used to play as a kid, the kind like "Sam and Max" and that breed.

Good: I felt the game play was well executed, it didn't try to pretend like there was more to it than there really was. Although game play wasn't "Fast pace" or "Exciting" it was never the less, enjoyable. It was like reading an interactive novel. The dialog was not over the top, and for a DS game, the cut scenes were much better than I expected.

Bad: The game was not hard... it was very very simple. Basically all you have to do is visit every area that you can every time you can and click on every object that has changed. The game does kind of feel like an I spy book. When things in the past change they change the present state of objects and people. Thus, talk to everyone and click on everything and you will win...

Also, never once did I "die" or run out of hollow time. It wasn't challenging enough when it came to knowing where to draw the time holes. Each scene was easily investigated.

Reception: Like I said, overall I enjoyed playing the game, if you play it, stay for the credits (I wont spoil it for you, but there is something after them). I give this game, for its genre a 89%

Game Review - Assassins Creed : PS3 : Ubisoft Montreal

In anticipation of the 2nd Assassin's Creed to be released, and due to the favorable reviews the original title received. I decided to pick up Assassin's Creed and give it a run through.

Now this game, I must say, was quite interesting. It was not exactly as I expected it to be. First off, when the game started, I was confused by the "futuristic" feel of the title. I was pleasantly surprised by the premise of the story. I was not expecting the layout of the plot being in two different timelines.

Good: Plot was excellent, I enjoyed the commentary when talking with the heads of each guild in each city. The dialog was fresh and it really felt like I was part of some secret organization. The game play was enjoyable (at least at first, more on this in a minute). Climbing buildings felt really fluid for the most part and it was fun to run away from guys.

Combat was alright, it felt a little unresponsive at times but the counter system was implemented very effectively.

Graphically, the game is beautiful, the blooming effects were not over done as they are in some games (Oblivion for example). Character animations were executed flawlessly.

Bad: The game felt repetitive after the first major mission. Everything was given away as far as game play was concerned right from the get go. The remainder of the game was just slightly harder missions of the same type, and the additional weapons you get are not all that exciting. The only thing saving this game was that the mission types were actually enjoyable to do more than once, however it mostly killed my replay value of the game.

I did notice at some points a speed up of the animation and game engine, which could be disorienting at times. I also ran into a few instances when climbing large buildings for the lookout missions that I had a hard time moving my character onto the final platform sticking out from the side of the building.

Also, finding all those darn flags is impossible... impossible...

Reception: I am looking forward to the second game (Damn those cliff hanger endings). I am hoping that it is not going to be more of the same missions again, they will need variety if they want to capture this audience. Overall, I give the original an 82% <--- totally arbitrary rating :)