Friday, October 12, 2012

Resident Evil 6: An Explanation for my lack of Coverage…

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Darkstalkers Franchise gets the WUB WUB Treatment with Darkstalkers Resurrection!

  I have to say early 2013 is a LONG TIME to wait for this!

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

And now Pandas! (World of Warcraft)

 

   And that my friends is the most your going to get from me on the new Expansion for WoW.

Monday, October 1, 2012

Tag me IN! (Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Review)(PS3)

       With some exception I tend to not review fighting games until they have been out for a while(sometimes as much as 3 months).  I tend to believe that both community and developers need time with the game in the wild to determine how good or bad a game is.  But Tekken Tag Tournament 2 was the type of game I could have reviewed the first week it came out.  I was never more impressed by so many things in a fighting game.  Except perhaps the original Street Fighter IV.  Which blew my doors off like nothing has since.  But that was more of a case of the perfect storm rather than a game that was so above and beyond that it was amazing.  Tekken Tag Tournament 2 is my fighting game of this generation.  And here is why.

       TTT2 a fast paced fighting style that makes sure that everyone is always awake and paying attention.  Blocking will get you thrown or just struck by getting hit by a sweep or an overhead.  All the moves are responsive and don’t have too much animation priority.  The game never feels cheap or convoluted.  There are breakable walls and floors that open up stages similarly to those in Tekken 6.  Every hit has a kind of impact that I rarely feel in fighting games.  Much like Street Fighter this fighter makes the player feel involved in the fight with excellent animations and good feedback.  The tag system is responsive and is useful.  In fact, in most cases the game is made a little easier using the tag system as opposed to complicating things..  Tag Assaults and Tag Throws both have impact and can be done pretty much immediately.  There were only a few times where I thought the system wasn’t responding to my commands in clutch situations.  As you play Tekken Tag Tournament 2 you will definitely find yourself in clutch situations.  The game moves very fast and moves do a descent amount of damage.  If I had to compare I would say that this game has Marvel versus Capcom 3’s pace with the move set of something like Virtua Fighter 5.

       Series staples are here like shared health bars and a huge cast of characters.  The graphics and production values in the game are first rate.  The developers obviously went all out to make sure this game looked amazing and had the flashiness to get people’s attention.  There is no Story mode, falling to the end movies in the Arcade mode to show the series hallmark CGI end movies for each character.  All modes in the game can be taken on in either Solo or Tag formats.  Playing Solo makes your damage increase and your red health SLOWLY recharge.  Tag may give you another character to share health with but your health recovers when that character isn’t playing and it recovers more quickly than in Solo format.  The offline single player has Arcade, Time Attack, Survival, and the excellent Ghost Battle Mode.  To choose from along with the Training and Practice modes. 

       Training mode takes a unique track where you play the character, Combot.  Who is created by Violet to be the ultimate fighting machine.  The challenges here are goofy and for the most part fun.  It makes practicing annoying mechanics more palatable.  But the mode is far shorter and less complicated than I expected. If Tekken Tag Tournament 2 has a failing it’s this mode.  It just isn’t enough and the lack of pick up and play aspect due to the terrible checkpointing in the mode make it even less appealing for folks just trying to drop in and then drop out.  The mode DOES allow you to customize Combot’s moveset to eventually get a unique character having only the moves you like.  Which is a fun distraction.  But I can’t really see anyone being that interested in this sort of thing.  But as I said, it is an excellent introduction for the new systems in TTT2 as well as a good practice for the more annoying to practice actions.  Practice mode is great, with features allowing you to record moves and combos and then fight against those moves or combos to your hearts content.  It’s definitely a huge step for fighting games.

        Overall, I found playing a Tag Team tended to be easier than playing Solo. But this depends greatly on your character or characters and your opponent. Tekken Tag Tournament 2 features over 50 characters and it appears that by the end of the year the game may have close to 60 characters. This could be viewed as too many characters to learn but this is also what gives Tekken Tag Tournament 2 all most unlimited depth. And finding the right Tag Team for you can be a VERY LONG process of experimenting with many combinations until you get it right. In total I’ve played close to 400 matches of TTT2 and still haven’t found my perfect team

      Throughout all most every mode in the game you are given money to go to the customize area’s store and purchase items, costume pieces, etc… To customize the look of your character.  You can change the colors of these items and even add items to your characters that might add a move to their move set.  This part of the game is one of the areas that keeps me playing and I know that Namco is going to be putting out some additional DLC for this area soon.  So it will keep me playing long into the future.  This very mode is what kept me playing Tekken 6.  What I never understood is what I like about this mode in Tekken that I don’t in SoulCalibur.  What I can say is that this mode has the worst menus in the entire game.  Too many layers, too much loading, too many button presses.  But after a while you get used to it.  But it definitely could use an overall, if that’s even possible at this point. 

    Online has the standard modes for lobbies, ranked matches, and player matches.  But with the addition of the free World Tekken Federation that allows a kind of stat tracking found only in services like Call of Duty Elite.  The online definitely shines.  As well as, at least same region games(that’s all I played). Being completely lag free.  I couldn’t have asked for too much more from the Online except maybe the system they have for Soul Calibur V.  Except, SCV doesn’t have the World Tekken Federation which definitely makes up for it.  If I have any criticism it’s for Namco to drop the Online Pass.  But considering the developers have made the World Tekken Federation and promised that all game downloadable content will be free.  I can’t complain too much. 

    Tekken Tag Tournament 2 is a deep, complete fighting game that makes no shortcuts.  There is definitely some nod to the button mashers of the world but this is a serious fighting game with an eye on competition above all else.  The people that will get the most out of Tekken Tag Tournament 2 are those who put in the time.  Since I’ve had the game 9/11/12, I’ve put in around 40 hours.  While this is not a lot of time; that is only because I had other games to play and review.  I would imagine the average player has all most twice that invested all ready.  I love the game and I know I will be playing long into next year and probably the following year.  Not only is Tekken Tag Tournament my fighting game of 2012.  It is my fighting game of the XBOX360/PS3 generation.  No matter what Capcom has in store for us next year it won’t be able to touch this package.  If you love fighting games, you NEED to play Tekken Tag Tournament 2: 9.8/10.

Definitely Not a Power Blow! (Dead or Alive 5 Review)(Xbox360)

  The first time I’d played a Dead or Alive fighting game was way back on the XBOX.  It was Dead or Alive 2 and I thought the game was pretty good.  Not as good as say, Mortal Kombat or Tekken.  But good.  With this recent episode I have to admit I was more skeptical than usual.  The game seemed to be focused on “fighting entertainment” which I guess means flashy crap that doesn’t really do much for the mechanics of the game.  Which is more or less what I was afraid of.  Most of my experience steams from Dead or Alive 4 and the MANY MANY hours I spent online.  I believe that game was held back by many of the same things that are holding this one back. But in addition this game seems to have picked up a few bad habits of it’s own.

            First and foremost. It must be gotten out of the way that this game does look great and does animate very well.  With the exception of the breasts of course, which are more alien than anything I’ve ever seen in a modern video game.  Whatever they are made of it seems to have a very fluid quality that is both strange and gravity defying.  I don’t know what the problem was here, but it distracting at best and disgusting at worst.

           All right now that we have that out of the way.  The mechanics of Dead or Alive 5 seem to be a little confused.  The blocking mechanic is terrible, because there is no feedback.  The blocking character doesn’t have impact and the striking character certainly doesn’t have any.  The little sweat drops that come off of the blocking character, are completely useless as they are usually practically invisible in every stage.  Throws are also terrible, as normally if you are standing on top of a character and you throw them; you are either being teched(your throw has been blocked) or you do a throw.  Not in Dead or Alive 5; all characters seem to be able escape throws so seamlessly that the animation is simply you missing the throw.  It makes no sense.  You can’t duck my throw if you have no frames to do so.  I’ve watched on multiple occasions my characters being struck after they finish their throwing animation by a character who is using a mid-strike.  How are they not being thrown?  Low throws have the very same problem.  I’ve been hit during my low throw animation by a low strike.  Also, in previous Dead or Alive games there was some stun on all of counters.  So that if you countered someone they couldn’t just get directly up and hit you.  But not in Dead or Alive 5.  Almost every time I counter held a character, they simple went into a combo directly after.  Completely negating my counter hold and what damage it did.  What convoluted tech roll, the game has never works and you are all most all ways hit on exit of the roll or even during the roll which kind of negates the having the roll completely.  Too many characters have one hit, uncounterable strikes that send their opponent flying across the screen for 20-40% damage.  This is too much.  Tekken has similar moves but they are more reset moves than spammable counter hits.

           DOA 5 doesn’t seem to be the least bit interested in balance or fairness.  The danger zones in the different stages where the character shot into them incur extra damage is often done from a “Power Blow” which is a charge move that can shoot the character into a danger zone(which itself does extra damage).  These Power Blows are like super moves.  The problem with them is that for the amount of damage they do(50-75%) they have a very wonky hit box on them.  So much so, that you can be doing a mid-combo and be just far enough away from the character performing the move to just whiff the whole thing.  I suppose this is something one could get used to.  But each character seems to have a different power blow animation and therefore a different wonky hit box while doing it.

           Dead of Alive 5 has a tag mode.  Which can be used in Arcade, Survival, Time Attack, and of course Online.  The tag system is awful.  Most of the time the tag ins are so late, that I often found the character that I needed to tag out had all ready lost all their remaining life by the time the move went through.  The tandem moves, like Tag throw and Tag assault are also a hit and miss affair.  Often, I just hit the buttons and hoped for the best.  This is definitely the weakest part of the game, mechanics wise.  A final bit on the mechanics.  I have found two different infinites on two different characters.  Completely by accident.  They are both wall ground hits.  But they seem to be pretty obvious to anyone using Christie or Mila.  Usually infinites are EXTREMELY hard to find.  But I found them while playing the Story mode.

           The Story mode is a loosely collected group of fights that last an incredibly long time.  Each Story fight has a bonus mission which if the player completes they get a reward.  A title usually, sometimes a new costume for the character performing the move.  The Story mode is SO BAD, that there is an Achievement for not skipping any cutscenes.  The difficulty has a pretty steady slope and normally the player will be fine with it by the time they reach the end.  However, considering how often they use different characters having a default one round fight is kind of a mistake.  Also, having unskippable intros is absolutely ridiculous.  I have NEVER played a fighting game with unskippable intros for each character.

                   The arcade mode is simply a collection of 8 fights and the prize for winning is simply a new costume for your fighter.  There is no boss, even though the final character is skewed a bit more difficult than the others fighters.  The Time Attack mode is the arcade mode where time getting from beginning to end is important.  Survival mode is where you must fight ten fighters back to back with only one round each and no breaks, intros, or much of a health reset(although there is some).  Training mode offers some good options with command training, and the ability to setup lots of situations.  But overall it is no better or worse than most of the other training modes out there.

             Online is the normal offering of Ranked, Player, or Lobby matches.  There wasn’t any lag in the 10-15 online games I played.  But I found that it takes too long to up your rank so many people who were the lowest rank had in fact played many games.  This was not only deceptive for the new player but probably maddening to anyone looking for descent matchmaking.  Considering the paltry offering the online pass seemed all most insulting.  But I suppose that is the way of things these days.  The last Ninja Gaiden had an awful online mode and it too had an online pass.  Perhaps if these modes were WORTH paying for, the pass would no longer be necessary.

            Dead or Alive 5 overall is a descent fighting game; and fun button masher for the casual player.  But for anyone who is taking fighting games seriously this game’s mawkish mechanics and complete lack of mechanical polish will drive anyone serious about fighting games away quickly.  It can be argued that the same mechanics that make the game fun to play for casual players are the very same mechanics that will make the serious player feel unfairly beaten or in an all or nothing situation far too often.

             Perhaps after patching and balancing the game could be worth playing.  But I’m not sure there will be anyone left playing it for such changes to matter or even be worth implementing.  I had some fun with Dead or Alive 5, but fighting games have definitely passed this game by. 7/10.

 

Update: the Infinite I was talking about: