Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Sad but Bitter Sweet(Eulogy for Arcades)

  I’m not an arcade rat by any means.  But when I was a lot younger I remember the stuff from the arcades as my fondest with video games.  Only playing with my girlfriend at the time is more memorable.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Two Games in One Week that were SO BAD, I had to stop playing!

          I have played a great number of bad games in my time.  Probably more than the average person certainly.  But generally speaking; I either play ten minutes and can’t play anymore or just muddle through and deal with it.  Strangely neither of these games fell into either of these categories.  What makes me more upset about both of these games than the average bad game; is that they both should really have been better.

        First, Resident Evil Operation Raccoon City.  A wonderful concept, a group of black ops Umbrella operatives that go into Raccoon City to try and clean up all trace of their involvement in the incident with the T-Virus.  The implementation is much less wonderful.  While leveling your particular party member up is pretty easy.  The actual leveling doesn’t do too much for you.  It doesn’t make your bullets more powerful or give you more health.  Which are really the only things that WOULD help in this game.  The goal of the game is simply survival.  Get from one checkpoint to the next, as quickly as possible without dying.  That’s it.

        The game plays like something out of the PS2 era.  Where the developers didn’t have enough memory to have descent A.I., environments, or boss battles.  I don’t really mind things like enemy bullet sponges, challenging shooter sequences, or even a really good survival horror game with limited ammo.  But what I don’t like are unfinished games.  Which is really what Resident Evil Operation Raccoon City is.  Or the game isn’t anywhere near ambitious enough.  Either way, the game is terrible.  Even being able to play the online modes or coop doesn’t help.  Because the problems in the game are so universal; fixing one thing isn’t going to help the game.  There are invisible walls, ally characters that wander around rather than shoot at anything or heal anyone, there is a serious lack of direction on the game’s part as to what you must ACTUALLY do to proceed.

       This is definitely a case of too little story, too few cutscenes, and implementation so lackluster that it borders on technological ignorance.  I don’t know why Slant Six Games made the choices they did; but I can say this: This is the worst game I’ve played this generation since Warhammer Battle March back in 2008.  I certainly didn’t see half the potential in that game that there is here.  I wish they would have taken more time, money, and perhaps hired some good QA because no one would have signed off on this mess.

      Next, we have Ninja Gaiden 3.  Only slightly better than Operation Raccoon City.

      The latest episode in Ryu Hyabusa’s saga comes from a Team Ninja that is without the creator of the modern series.  While it has been insisted to everyone that this will change nothing.  This certainly hasn’t been the case.  The unfortunate thing about this game is not that they have tried to bring the game to a broader audience but that they took quite a few steps back from the last Ninja Gaiden to do it.  There are lots of quicktime events; which isn’t a big deal.  But the fact that there is only one weapon and few combos with that weapon are.  The typical Ninja Gaiden has you finding weapons , buying weapons, ninja magic, etc…  It’s usually part RPG and part Action game.  Each weapon has different attacks and combos associated with it.  The games are somewhat complicated in this area but usually nothing unusual.

      Similarly to the other games, you are put in an arena of enemies and Ryu is tasked to eliminate them all.  The difference is that in this game, all the enemies hit you with cheap attacks that are locked in animations rather than counter-able attacks.  Ryu himself has a bad tendency to get locked into animations like aiming his bow or doing a jumping attack combo.  But unlike the enemies he can be knocked out of these.  Which is inconsistent to say the least.  For some reason shoulder mounted rockets are also involved a bit too much.  I’m not entirely sure that if I was trying to kill some one I would shoot them with an RPG.  Especially when all my comrades are standing around them.  What would the over/under be on hitting him versus one of my colleagues.

       The whole killing innocents thing is kind of ridiculous considering these are the same guys who were shooting you two seconds ago.  All of the cutscenes seem badly placed and while the game obviously wants it to be about the story; the story is so jumbled and unimportant to what is going on.  Which is basically just killing an arena of guys or an odd boss that the lack of anything to mix things up or diversify the experience makes the game quickly unplayable and pointless.  There doesn’t seem to be any thought to how many guys to throw in.  Or how many parts to the boss battle there needs to be.  The thinking is that there just be as many as possible.  Perhaps the memory dictated this or some other under the hood process.

      I’m a big fan of the Ninja Gaiden Franchise and I’m still a big fan of Tomonobu Itagaki who’s touch in this game is sorely lacking considering he quit Team Ninja.  I’m not saying that such a things as Team Ninja games without him are doomed to fail or bad out of hand.  But what I will say is that if this game is a representation of their work without him, I’m not interested in Dead or Alive 5.

       Let me conclude by saying that the previous were not reviews of Operation Raccoon City or Ninja Gaiden 3; because combined I only have around 8 hours invested.  And I couldn’t stomach finishing either game.  Both games could have been great.  But for whatever reason they aren’t even really playable.

Friday, March 23, 2012

I Haven’t Recovered from Disney’s Last Epic Mickey!

      There were definitely some descent things in the last Epic Mickey.  I can’t believe it sold well enough to have a sequel.  But hey good on them.  Hopefully a XBOX 360 and PS3 version will put the game into it’s rightful position.  Some of things they have said about camera control has me leery.  But hey, it can’t be any worse than the first one.  Can’t wait to play it this Fall.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Walking Dead Game Debut Trailer(PC)

        This week marked the end of the Season 2, this announcement, and the announcement of a Walking Dead Facebook Game coming in April.  I guess it’s a good week to be a fan of zombies….  Unless your playing Operation Raccoon City Sad smile

Apparently THIS is NOT a GOOD WEEK For Game Reviews!

        Definitely can’t argue with these reviews.   As my review copies have not arrived as yet.  But at the very least, the fact that Ninja Gaiden 3’s Online Pass didn’t work yesterday or today doesn’t bode well.  Certainly some of these reviews are based on a relatively small number of reviewers but still, this not good.

All three of these games were from Japanese developers trying to bring a new take to their franchise.  Which is very sad if these are the results.  I now, really can’t wait to play these games because as I’ve seen a good helping of each; I haven’t been able to go hands-on.  I think my expectations have officially been reduced.  And considering there won’t be anymore BIG releases until April.  Here’s hoping those are better.  If you makes you feel any better Capcom, I really like Street Fighter x Tekken.  But I’m not willing to talk about that until April either.  Sorry guys…

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Business is Good(Syndicate Review)(XBOX360/PS3)

      Syndicate is one of those strange cases where it’s hard to imagine what the developers were thinking when they came up with this.  Take an old franchise that was a 4 character turn based RPG and turn it into a FPS with very light RPG elements.  Don’t associate with the original franchise’s story, except using the same theme.  The original game came out in 1993;  there are people alive today that weren’t even alive back then.  So is this a way of reinvigorating the franchise or just a way to keep from taking a risk on a “completely” new IP.  Except that for all intents and purposes, this is a new IP.

     Syndicate allows the player to explore the very Deus Ex inspired world of 2069(seems a little too soon to me, but hey whatever).  In this world corporations rule the world and there are two kinds of people; chipped and non-chipped.  The chipped people work for the corporations and the non-chipped live in ghettos are not even considered people.  Most of this comes through extra information found throughout the game and can be completely ignored if you wish.  Which can make the entire game very hollow to play through.  The player takes on the role of silent protagonist Miles Kilo; who is an agent tasked with keeping his corporation’s secrets safe.  Unfortunately for Kilo, in 2069 this means shoot people full of lead rather than filing injunctions.  Kilo is also the test subject for a new kind of chip called the DART system.

    The DART system allows the user to use three different hacking abilities on others who have chips and machines in the world.  Also, it allows the player to slow down time for themselves a little and marks targets with yellow auras.  This works through walls and even close floor to ceiling.  It’s detective vision style and works pretty well throughout the game.  The only problem I had was that you cannot run when it’s active.  Which while it speeds up your actions it doesn’t speed up your movement.  Which I thought was strange.

     On the whole, Syndicate is a pretty standard FPS.  There are certainly the breaching/hacking abilities but in the end these don’t change the game very significantly.  They seem to be primarily used in place of using more grenades or as a light puzzle solving device.  The game has some terrible cover mechanics that are all most impossible to discern how exposed you are from one moment to the next.  The RPG elements are a nice touch; but as a consequence of the way the system is implemented you cannot take hardly any fire in the beginning of the game.  So you die quite often, even playing on Normal.  Which unless you are overly interested in the gameplay and not the story; wanting to play it twice.  The beginning of the game can be a little annoying.  I would have preferred all the shield and health enhancements be built in or just not there at all.  Considering how many rounds most of the cannon fodder enemies can take in the game, it wouldn’t have been that unbelievable.

     By the end of the game the player will end up shooting a rather large group of enemies from one room to the next.  In some cases, near the end the game is more wave based shooter rather than a story-based FPS.  I would have preferred more story and cutscenes and fewer rooms full of annoying enemies that I’ve been shooting for the whole game.  As with a game set in the near cyber future in office buildings; most every environment looks just like the last.  When the game does open up to the ghettos of New York.  The designers put you in abandoned warehouse and some(wait for it) sewers.  I really felt like they could have really taken the time to tell some descent stories here or at the very least show some NEW environments for a game like this.

   The only differentiating factor in the game are the bosses.  Some were VERY good, some were just OK.  But no matter the case, I would have rather had two or three more of them and fewer rooms full of cannon fodder.  Each boss, at the very least; had it’s own signature style and powers.  Unfortunately, most of the time these battles boiled down to waiting for DART to recharge so I could jump out of cover and shoot the boss full of holes.  This didn’t happen every time but all most.  But even with this, it was a really nice change from what I’d been doing the entire game.

  Thankfully there were no turrets, although there was one sequence towards the beginning that came close to it.  Even so, at least they didn’t stoop to on-rails sequences so popular these days.  I would have also preferred to have either more abilities or more chances to use them; to further change up the game from just another shooter.

  Syndicate’s defining feature from everything else out there is the four player co-op multiplayer.  These sessions take you through a number of maps from the single player; but using different kinds of enemies and mission types.  There are currently three mission types: one is to get to drop zone, another to secure up to four cases of intel and drop them off at a extraction vehicle, and the final one is to escort a robotic cutter through a level.  All of these missions work well and even with people who haven’t played the game for a lot of time get the idea pretty quickly.  There is a boss in everyone of these missions.  Mostly just a enemy with a lot of health and a lot of armor.

  There is an upgrade track for your agent and while there is no cosmetic customization track.  You can mod/research weapons and eventually be able to upgrade your agent’s abilities all most to the maximum allowed.   Clans are called corporations with different names and simplistic management structures that basically dictate who can invite new players into the corporation.  The corporations have separate challenges from players and this allows players to level up even faster.  The only problem is that players have to be online, playing Syndicate to invite them.  Which makes inviting some people challenging if you don’t have enough officers that can invite people into your group.  The online is definitely the star performer here and EA doesn’t even make you have an Online Pass to play it.

   While overall, I enjoyed my time with Syndicate.  The game just fails to stand out from the pack.  The FPS market is one of the most crowded there is.in the entire video game industry.  It isn’t enough just to be good, you have to be great.  While Syndicate has some good ideas, the good multiplayer isn’t enough to outweigh the mediocre single player. 7.5/10…  

Monday, March 19, 2012

Shoot Me Some Frickin Robots BRO!(Shoot Many Robots Review)(XBLA)

       There was probably a point in everyone’s life who doesn’t have a smart phone(And we are out here, and we are getting stronger!) where you need that ten to thirty minutes of fun.  Shoot Many Robots is here to fill that need.  I picked this game up the other day with the intent only to play the demo(I’m a cheap jerk when it comes to XBLA/PSN games; sorry small developers).  But the more I played Shoot Many Robots, the more I grew to love it.

      The game is a 2.5D side scrolling shooter.  The game reminded me a lot of the new Rush’N Attack; which in itself is not a good thing at all.  But what they do with that space is pretty awesome.  The game allows you to play with up to four other folks; which would be great if ANYONE on friends list was actually playing this game(Thanks ME3).

      The controls for Shoot Many Robots really isn’t what you’d expect.  I won’t go into all the mechanics right now.  But the main oddity is that you cannot move and aim.  You can also melee and you can also knock large bullets back to their source in certain situations.  These are not a big deal and while you might but put off at first; in the end you will get used to the controls after you’ve messed with them for a few minutes.  At no point did I feel like the controls were holding me back or I was making mistakes due to them.

     The game basically consists of shooting lots of different robots; mostly in junkyards or destroyed cities and such.  It has some Borderlands style with a little whimsy tossed in.  Most of this consists of funny in game items.  Some even from Penny Arcade etc…  Which is awesome sauce for sure.  I’m also told there are some Destructoid items as well.  So craziness.  The only marring of this is the microtranactions that are build into the game.  You can buy nuts, which are the currency of the game.  Which is silly considering you can just play and get as many nuts as you want.  But I guess for all those people with more money than time(please send me your gamertags and I’ll play for you, you can pay me $10 an hour and I’ll play for as long as you want) can pay for more packages of nuts to buy new stuff.  Problem with this is, that unless you are the appropriate level you cannot use all these items you’ve unlocked.  So you actually DO have to play in order to get anything out of this.  Which you will get lots of nuts then anyway… So there is really NO REASON to buy these nuts.  Sorry…

     I’ve had a tremendous time with Shoot Many Robots and as I said before it’s a great game to play for around 15-30 minutes at a go while your waiting for something to happen.  You know, like laundry to finish or your dinner to be finished cooking etc… If you want to give Shoot Many Robots a shot.  I have to warn you the first gun in the trial is not all that great and you will probably be beating up more robots than shooting for a little while.  But when you actually get near the demo’s end you WILL be shooting robots; so don’t worry.  This game isn’t going to set the world on fire; there is some serious repetition in this game and you basically just SHOOT MANY ROBOTS, but surprise right?  But it is a great way to have some fun and there are actually some REALLY challenging elements in the game if you want to five star a level.  I loved Shoot Many Robots as a fun distraction. 8/10

King of Chinatown is on PSN for Download!(FGC)

       As some fans of this site might know; I’m a big fighting game fan.  When this movie was announced back a little more than a year ago I was completely stoked to see it.  When I saw that it was available for rent on PSN recently I was even more stoked.  I just watched the movie and I have to say that this is a great window into some gaming history.  Even if the lens is a little distorted; it can really speak to some of the stuff that is still going on even today in the community.  A lot of members of the community might think this movie is a little whack.  But for people who haven’t seen I GOT Next or seen anything else about the community this might be a good place to start.

     For my money I GOT Next is better.  You can watch that here.  There are lots of commercials; but it’s free, so get over it.  The main thing different about Chinatown and I Got Next is that Chinatown is more about Justin Wong and I Got Next is more about Gootecks and Mike Ross.  Either way, these three guys are majorly important in the community and everybody should check it out.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Oh Shepard…(Mass Effect 3 Review)(XBOX 360)

      If you look back in history; the reader will notice I absolutely loved Mass Effect 2.  It was one of my favorite games of all time.  I even went so far as to say that it might be the Greatest Game Ever Made.  With this in mind, please realize that I had pretty high expectations for Mass Effect 3.

     I started playing on launch day, and managed to play just about every day until I finished the game last night.  It certainly is a good game in the sense that your all ways really interested in what you might find next and what kind of story elements and old friends might creep into your current story.  Let me also say that I used my imported Mass Effect 2 save.  Which means that I started with a pretty high level Shepard and lots of DLC history for the game to pull from.  Including the Arrival, which really informs the beginning of the game.  If the player hasn’t played Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, and all the DLC.  The player might not get the full experience.  The lack of emotional investment may seriously impact the player’s experience in the game.  Because no matter what any one says this game is all about concluding a Trilogy. Not building any kind of descent story or relationship with the player apart from that.

    Let me get multiplayer out of the way right off the bat.  The multiplayer is pretty good.  Certainly not nearly as good or well polished as Dead Space 2 or Gears of War 3.  But all right even with the not quite ready for 3rd person focused third person shooting.  The lack of interesting starting character models really takes away from the overall desire to play it.  If I’m going to play multiplayer, I should at least be able to play a Turian, Krogan, or Asari right off the bat.  The terrible microtransaction based random drop purchasing also doesn’t do the game any favors.  Finally, by having people level up and get access to new powers or stronger current powers; makes playing with low level players a non-starter for anyone playing for a long time.  If you have 2 high level characters on the team; they certainly don’t want 2 level 3 folks that they have drag around for 10 waves.  I did play quite a bit of the multiplayer overall.  But as something to make me return to the game; or play long enough to uplift my character to the Galaxy at War.  Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer just isn’t that compelling with SO MANY other fully fleshed out good wave based shooters.  Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer had to be unique and it was anything but that.  Arguing that the multiplayer maps are integrated from the single player making them better, actually just cheapened the total value of these maps overall.  Rather than making either one of them better.

   My main issue with Mass Effect 3 was what seemed to be the total lack of effort on the part of the developers to use the assets they all ready had from Mass Effect 2.  While Tali, Liara, and Miranda were used pretty well throughout the game; I found the fact that Thane, Grunt, Jack, and Jacob were virtually ignored to make room for James, Ashley, Javik, Diana Allers, and EDI.  This seemed like needless work.  To think that the player would be more interested in getting to know new people when they spent the entire previous game getting to know so many characters; drops the emotional ball for the series in general.  Not that I hated the new characters necessarily and Javik in particular is an excellent character(Javik is from the From the Ashes DLC and it is a necessity for anyone invested in the Mass Effect universe.  Don’t miss this, if your buying the game).  But my point is only that the game would have been better served by having the surviving team from Mass Effect 2 return.  This is especially true given the scenes in latter portions of the game where the developers really try to shoehorn in some emotional weight that for the most part the rest of game has with stops and starts.  Also, the long monotonous dream sequences were completely out of place in the third episode of a series where the player has been building their own story for over 80 hours.

  At the beginning of the game the Earth is attacked by the Reapers and you must go around the galaxy collecting fleets to come to earth to destroy them.  On paper this is an interesting concept but the idea of Commander Shepard wandering around the galaxy doing various things other than getting back to earth and kicking the Reapers butts.  While they come close to trying to explain this away.  It all falls apart when Shepard starts having to go off and find relics or some other little quest for some random NPC.  While the system itself is flimsy; this one extra step just goes a little too far.  Especially when most of the time Shepard isn’t ACTUALLY asked to look for these things; he just over hears a person’s conversation and then the player has a quest to go off and find this stuff.  There is no indication when the quest’s needs have been fulfilled.  So the player has to look for new names on the Citadel map to find these people again.  This seems like a really unnecessary and ultimately unbelievable design for something that shouldn’t really have been in there to begin with.

  

 While I did enjoy seeing all my old companions from previous games.  It did stretch the suspension of disbelief a little.  It was like, “Of all the gin joints in all the cities in all the world; you had to walk into mine.”  Around seven to ten times.  Then the characters can’t even help you on your little quest to save the earth.  At least for the most part.  My Shepard was involved with Miranda in Mass Effect 2 and even after her problems were over she still wasn’t able to join me in the final battle.  Our last conversation was over vidcom.  It just didn’t make any sense; given how incredibly ridiculous the rest of the coincidences were.  I mean if I could run into 6 people I wasn’t looking for in my adventures.  Why couldn’t I find the one person I WOULD have been looking for, for the final battle.  Because for whatever reason, they didn’t want to do it that way.  Which would have been fine if there was something just as dramatic in it’s place.  Except that what was there kind of fell flat.

   Mass Effect 2 began Mass Effect’s journey from RPG to third person shooter.  While Mass Effect 3 doesn’t do anything major to change this move the needle one way or another.  Most of the actual shooting is pretty boring and the requirement by the game to have you constantly moving from one cover spot to another would be fine except that the actual movement mechanics are terrible.  Running, taking cover, and interaction are all on the A button on the XBOX 360 and the X button for the PS3.  So when the player is running and they want to take cover they can easily do so.  But if they don’t want to take cover there is virtually no way to prevent it.

    At around halfway through the game the player will probably think they have this mastered.  Until they are introduced to the Banshee.  An enemy that for some reason the developers thought it would be cool if it could teleport around the map and on hit kill the player.  Yes, if the Banshee gets too close to Shepard, no matter how much health, shields, etc.. The character has, the Banshee just reaches out and kills them.  Add to this that they take an incredible amount of damage even from the best weapons and it doesn’t seem to matter that they, along with all the other A.I. in the game is only slightly more intelligent than the average kindergartener.  Which might be giving them too much credit, but it’s at least that way by the end of the game.  Also, throwing 5 heavily armored units at the player in a very narrow hallway and expecting them to deal with it, is not fun, no matter what your definition of fun is.  I’m not saying that the game is hard, at least not on the Normal difficulty setting; just that it is trying WAY TOO HARD to be challenging by playing on the all ready too limited mechanics.  Put me the same situation in Gears of War and I’d be done in half the time with none of the frustration.

    I was perfectly happy with Mass Effect 3 in the first 3 quarters but the final quarter was terrible.  Seems like all the problems the game has in the first 3 quarters are magnified in the last part.  Hard to imagine what could have happened.  Although I will say this is probably the shortest Mass Effect game I’ve ever played at only around 30 hours maximum.  I would usually use the time stamp on the last save; but this game’s final save state is set far back from the end of the game for reasons that become apparent when playing.  Also, not being able to hard save at all in the last two hours of the game is a little more than a little annoying.  Coincidentally this is also the part of the game where things begin to truly go off the rails.  In hindsight, I can certainly understand and appreciate the way that Mass Effect 3 ended.  But for the end of a series that has a around a 120 hours of gameplay wrapped in it; the end seemed a little unsatisfying at best.  Also, the reason they messed with the end of the game save states so much is because they wanted to have DLC.  But with the way the game ended(even with the 100% war assets ending) ; it’s hard to imagine anyone caring enough to play any downloadable content, of any kind.  Mainly because they know that everything they have done up to this point hasn’t really effected much and unless with future DLC they plan on changing the ending(again).  I don’t really see the point.  This game definitely makes a strong case for a new series within the Mass Effect Universe; that probably doesn’t involve the same characters that have been in it up to this point.  Although if the player gets the perfect/best ending I guess it’s conceivable that there could be a continuing story with those characters.  But again, probably not.

      Mass Effect 3 should have been the epic conclusion to an epic trilogy.  Probably one of the greatest video game series in all of history.  Instead it was just another case of a strong middle chapter that cannot be carried through with by the concluding work.  Mass Effect 3 was one of my most anticipated games of 2012, it’s too bad it turned out to be one my biggest disappointments of 2012 instead. 8/10

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Take the Journey!(Journey Review)(PSN Exclusive)

        Journey is a very difficult game to sit down and think about reviewing.  Since finishing the game yesterday I have found myself overjoyed at merely thinking about the game.  I’ve told friends, family, and even(for the first time) written an email to the developer thanking them for the game.  But when those same friends and family asked me, “So what’s the big deal?”  At first, I had a very hard time answering them.  Because Journey, much like Thatgamecompany’s other games(Flow and Flower) isn’t so much a game; it’s an experience.  Now, I know some of you out there are going,”great, it’s one of those artsy things where you play music with glowing fish.  And I’m supposed to think it saved me from my ignorance or something.”  Well, no, I wouldn’t say that.

        Playing Journey is mostly about playing Journey.  To tell someone about it, which I certainly could describe every single part; would be doing a disservice to both the game and the person I’m telling.  Because unless you actually feel what it’s like to play, your losing some of the experience.  It’s like swimming, riding a horse, or making love, there just aren’t too many ways to accurately convey the experience without diminishing it.  But I will give it a shot here; just don’t take my word for it though, it’s $15 play it yourself.

      Journey is about you; a single being who ventures throughout many lands to reach a mountain.  There are no weapons, no violence, and no score in Journey. There is no way of interacting with the landscape except through limited jumping, gliding, and sliding.  In Journey you are all ways moving forward but are encouraged to explore all the landscapes you encounter; both to get trophies and to collect magic sigils to extend your jumping capacity.  There are bits of story spread throughout the game to explain a little what is going on; but you basically have to interpret it for yourself.  There is a multiplayer element in which you come upon another person just like yourself and you can only interact with them by holding down a button for different amounts of time to produce varying degrees of one note of music.  That’s it, no PSN ID, no voice communication, and no custom avatar.  You won’t know anything about your fellow travelers until after the game ends and the credits give you a list of all the people you encountered along the way.  These people you meet are more inhabitants in your world than competitors or helpers.  The way Journey handles multiplayer is completely revolutionary even if it is reductionist.

  Journey has amazing hand drawn style graphics that truly make you feel like you are in another world.  The music changes dynamically throughout and is certainly one of Journey’s best features.  Journey takes around three hours to play and if you really want to get the most out of the game you have to play it to the end in one sitting.  The game will save here and there; but it really doesn’t lend itself to multiple stops and starts.  Also, you will probably want to play Journey at least twice once you’ve seen the ending.  But perhaps that’s just me.

        That’s it…  That’s Journey.  But the paragraphs above are really only a mechanical explanation of the game.  I could explain EXACTLY what happens; but you need too experience that for yourselves.  I won’t add my interpretation of what Journey is or what it means to me.  Plenty of other reviews have done this speculation and I believe it is a disservice to readers.  If you don’t understand why Journey is perfect or amazing then nothing I say will change your mind.  It’s like if I said,”Puppies are cute.” And you disagreed.  How would I convince you to the contrary?

      This is a very unique situation in video games and one that I hope I encounter again some day.   I will say that Journey is the best game I have EVER played and nothing on the horizon for this year can even hope to come close to it.  Let me say now that Journey is my Game of the Year and my game of this generation of consoles.  Because there never has been a game on any platform for any system that does what Journey does.  Journey is the holy grail of what video games have been trying to achieve ever since our FMV(Full Motion Video) days.  Except it does something more than giving the player an emotional experience, like that found in movies.  It gives the player an experience unlike anything else anywhere.  10/10….

Journey on PSN Today!

        A review of this game is coming later on this week.  But let me tell you now, that it’s the greatest game I’ve ever played.  So don’t wait for the whole review, just BUY IT!

Friday, March 9, 2012

Quantic Dream’s Kara is a PS3 Tech Demo… And a little Scary

      I’m wondering now if this will only work with something like Heavy Rain where there is limited 3 dimensional movement and action or if this kind of thing will work in a normal game.  If it does work in a normal game this kind of Performance Capture will revolutionize the industry.  Hopefully, Quantic Dream will at the very least share this technology with other Sony Partners.

Monday, March 5, 2012

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Blue Skies and White Powder! (SSX Review)(XBOX360)

          As the sky goes dark; the whir of the chopper blades roar in my ears as I hang out the side.  My snowboard propped on the skis of the hovering beast.  My heart barely leaps as I drop to the hard packed snow below.  This is not something new for me; it’s a just another day at the office.  An avalanche, an overgrowth of trees, and even a sheer impassable drop are nothing more than mere obstacles in my path down the mountain.  Even the impenetrable darkness is nothing but an annoyance as a crouch to hit my first ramp that will send me several feet in the air and over a sheer drop before me.  This is not the next feature film or the next crazy Youtube series.  No, it’s SSX for 2012 and it is incredible.

         SSX is one of the best games I’ve played in a very long time.  There are a multitude of things about it that make the title the best sports and the best racing title I’ve played all year.  SSX is from the Sports division of EA.  It’s meant to be part of their long virtually untouched, EXTREME SPORTS area which last had an installment, with probably NBA Street or NFL Street.  Needless to say, it’s been a very long time.

       Some people would call SSX Blur, which was a Wii title back in 2007; the last SSX game.  I would rather say it was SSX 3 or SSX Tricky.  Which was either 2001 or 2003 depending on which one you pick.  Either way, that’s around 10 years.  Which is a REALLY LONG TIME for a franchise to be on hiatus and have any business being as good as the new game is.  SSX for 2012 does everything those old games did, but I dare say it does it MUCH MUCH BETTER.

      The graphics in this game are some of the best I’ve seen in a game where you are usually clipping along so fast that you can barely comprehend what is going on around you.  I am terrible at estimating framerate; but SSX certainly has it nailed whatever frames it’s pulling.  I love the night events and every Deadly Descent event was incredible.  In the Deadly Descents you have to just survive and get to the bottom of the mountain in the World Tour mode.  This is usually made difficult by avalanches, trees blocking your route, and even sheer drops that you actually have to fly over to cross.  Every one of these events was obviously crafted with care and the more you play them in the EXPLORE mode; the more you realize just how technically challenging something like this must have been to design.

       In the World Tour Mode(read story/campaign), you go through a series of events with different characters, leveling each one up and acquiring different gear for each.  By doing this you also are shown some motion comics that are supposed to be the backstory for each character and move the “Story” of what’s going on along.  I guess if they HAD to have a Story mode this was the best way to do it.  Take as little time with it as possible and spend as little money as possible on it.  So that the player can just skip it and move on to the actual events.  Because the story, comic, and backstories are TERRIBLE!  If SSX has one fault it’s this area.  But it is only a minor fault because the scenes are skippable and the events themselves are top notch.

       EXPLORE mode is the meat of this title.  The player can pick any character they want and either for a fee of in game credits or perhaps you’ve all ready unlocked the course through the World Tour mode.  You can Race, Trick, or Survive your way to the top of the leaderboards.  This mode uses a similar mechanic to the Audiolog in Need for Speed Hot Pursuit called Ridernet.  This allows everyone who has the game on your Friends list to compete directly with you in events by racing, tricking, or surviving against your ghost.  There is no ACTUAL multiplayer here.  But that really doesn’t matter considering in most events you don’t see more of your competitors than their game enhanced trail if you are behind them and nothing at all if you are a head of them, anyway.   The feature is extremely addictive and I’ve found myself playing for hours just to beat the single person a head of me.  For this mode alone the game is endless replayable.

        In SSX, you need gear to survive the Deadly Descent events; such as needing an ice axe for very icy mountains or Armor to survive an avalanche.  But different boards and suits with different stats will also help out your performance and can certainly make the difference when playing against other players scores and not just the A.I.SSX has lots of gear that you can purchase with in-game credits.  You can also buy this currency with real money.  While I don’t normally recommend doing this.  I do have to admit it’s very tempting when you go into the gear section and there is some incredible piece of gear that was randomly made available this time you went in there and only this time that is only one or two runs away from being yours to just buy the credits and not miss out on the gear.  I’m sure this is what EA is counting and it works pretty well.  I certainly can’t wait to play even more and see what the really high level gear does for me.

     I would be remiss if I finished my review without mentioning the phenomenal audio job that was done for SSX.  The soundtrack is very appropriate for the game and you never really get tired of hearing it.  The music is meant to pump you up and get you going.  That’s exactly what it does; without every leaving you feeling tired or like the same basic track or beat has gone on for too long.  The voice work in the game is minimal and over top; but not the greatest.  They never go far enough with the humor or cheesiness of the voice work. So you end with just a bunch of boring, repetitive voices that you would just as soon turn as listen to for the hundredth time.  This happens often in Sports titles, but here they might have wanted to think a little outside of the box or just not included it at all.

      SSX is the best game I’ve played so far this year and will be happy to play probably til the end of the year.  SSX makes gameplay king and no matter how much you like story in games.  Everyone would rather play the game than watch a cutscene.  It’s a game that met and then exceeded my expectations.  Even with the horrendous story; the game is a clearly a gold medal winner. 9.8/10…