Leveling Down

I just got married this past Saturday, so I will be taking a couple of weeks off from the blog (I think). I may try to update sporadically, but you can mostly expect to hear only from espion4ge for a little while.

I did want to say that I picked up Dragon Quest V for DS, semi in honor of my nuptials. For those who don’t know, one of the major facets of Dragon Quest V is deciding who to marry. So, heh. I have never played it so I’m looking forward to the game.

Also, I did learn something new at my wedding gaming related: my father told everyone that my first video game was Space Invaders on the Commodore 64. I can’t even remember playing that game, but thanks dad for getting me started!

See you all in a few!

Super Mario Galaxy is the Wii’s top rated game, and for good reason!

With my primary 360 broken and in for repair, I decided to start off at the top of the Wii best rated list: Super Mario Galaxy. I am loving it. This is actually a game that was designed very well with incorporating both the motion controller and regular controls, unlike other Wii games that I’ve played. There’s just enough there that makes use of the motion controller without feeling overly tacked on. It made think, “Wow, I didn’t know Wii owners had access to such a stellar game!”

Mario Galaxy is just phenomenal and makes me forget about HD gaming altogether. It takes a little while to get used to though: walking around small level “planets” and worrying about gravity, but the gameplay is unbelievably sound and charming. I love the music and how several of them are remixed tunes of the classic series. It’s a game that’s not overly complicated, but deep enough that you can enjoy it without getting frustrated figuring out how to beat something. It also is very commitment-free – there’s not some huge adventure world that you have to keep track of your progress in all the time. You can put this down for weeks and come back and not have to remember what happened earlier in order to progress forward. It’s so intuitive and perhaps the best example of a game I can think of where on the surface it seems harmless and family friendly but its gameplay is so deep and elegant that if any gamer were to try it, I can’t see how they wouldn’t enjoy it. I’m even more inclined to start playing Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts now, hoping that its family friendly presentation hides amazing gameplay underneath.

I do have one minor issue with the game, and that is with it very infrequently going out of its way to force you to play with Motion Controller mechanics. The general gameplay aspects of the motion controller are enjoyable – pointing the remote at the screen to pick up stars that land so you can shoot them at enemies to stun them or shaking the remote to spin-punch an enemy. But there are extra levels where you’re playing Super Monkey Ball with the Wii-mote, and so far there’s been one level that I played that had me extremely frustrated. On this level you would basically fling Mario with slingshot like devices that could be aimed 360 degrees using your Wii-mote. But if you were off by about 5 degrees or so, Mario would miss his next target and fall to his doom. And you had to do this through moving objects that would block your path, etc. Not fun at all, considering how little room for error there was. But I finally made my way through it and can continue enjoying the rest of the game.

If you’re a Wii owner and haven’t played this yet – this game should be your number one priority. I can’t wait for the sequel.

The Last Remnant’s battle system is perhaps a bit confusing for most gamers, making the title difficult to get into.

With PS3 JRPG fans a little worried that The Last Remnant may not make its way over to the PS3 after all, it seemed like a good time for me to give some impressions on the game so perhaps you won’t be too sad. Despite hearing that it was a very mediocre game with extreme slowdown, I thought the hard drive installation and my love for Bladestorm would have me enjoying the game more than the average gamer. The hard drive installation helps considerably, but whether I enjoy the game or not is still to be determined.

From the screenshots of the game, it looks like your typical Japanese RPG: young male protagonist, generic JRPG heroes and characters, fight screens, towns, etc. As a JRPG fan, I’m actually not one that really enjoys a lot of “innovation” in my JRPGs – let me grind away and find treasures and give me an interesting storyline with entertaining characters and I will love it.

The Last Remnant changes things up a bit, and it’s so jarring that I may not have what it takes to see this game through. First of all, the battle system is just crazy. It’s no longer managing a bench of a dozen or so characters with only 3-4 in battle at a time, but instead you’re managing small squads of heroes and soldiers. It seems like it’s possible to command up to 5 squads of 2-5 members each, and you give general commands for each squad as opposed to specific commands such as “Cast Cure” or “Use Special Move X”. That in and of itself is fine – I love RTS games after all. But even after a couple hours, I still couldn’t understand how the squad battles worked – is there strategy in the combat or is it all fake strategy where your decisions are really pointless?

On top of that, other JRPG mechanics have radically changed here as well. You can save the game at any time (pretty crazy for a JRPG!) and after every battle, all your characters are at full health. While these sound like convenient innovations, the one thing that boggles my mind is that there’s no actual leveling up of the characters. There’s strange formulas that work out based on how you put the characters in the squads, and basically the ideal way to play through the game seems to be to avoid all random encounters altogether so you get stronger later – quite an unintuitive way to play the game as a JRPG fan. Combine that with the fact that most of the game seems mostly about taking on random sidequests in the same levels over and over instead of an overarching adventure, and I think I’m going to put this aside for now and try it later if I’m feelin it again. I might have to move onto Star Ocean: The Last Hope for my next JRPG fix.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZegzQKOCEos&hl=en&fs=1&]

I jumped into some Halo 3 over the weekend, and after getting my butt handed to me multiple times, I started remembering why I enjoyed Halo 3′s multiplayer so much in the first place (ironic, I know). Naturally, I then began thinking about Halo 3: ODST’s upcoming release (9/22/09) and started checking out some of the stuff released about ODST during E3. Above is basically the demo that they were showing, as seen on Revision3′s live E3 shows, which I would highly recommend checking out if you’re interested in the new Halo game (the second half talks about Splinter Cell: Conviction, which deserves a post unto itself).

Watching the video tempered my enthusiasm about the game, because Bungie is taking some bold risks that I am worried might not pan out. In Halo 3: ODST you play as “The Rookie”, a new member of an ODST squad who gets separated from his squad in the huge open world of New Mombasa at the beginning of the game. That’s right, ODST is going to be an open world game. Various objectives come up on your map, but you can get to them in whatever order you want. Another bold game design is that these “objectives” basically spit you into flashbacks, where you play as other members of your squad in scripted, more Halo-like sequences. These decisions may either make the game feel completely refreshing and new, or it could really cripple the tried and true Halo formula. I really hope it’s the former, but thinking about it, right now I’m skeptical. Then again, until Bungie came around, everyone was skeptical that FPS could work on consoles and look at what has happened.

Another thing I’m worried about is the gameplay being different from Halo 3. Since ODSTs are not equipped with shields like Spartans, you need to find medpacks to stay alive. That fundamentally changes the way you play the game. Also, the ODST is equipped with “visors” that color code things in the environment, something that could overly simplify the gameplay. Finally, I wonder what’s going to happen to multiplayer, will it just be an expansion of Halo 3 (I know the game ships with all the maps), or will you have the new ODST gameplay where you need to find medpacks and what not. So many questions…

The one thing I am most looking forward to in ODST is the new “Firefight” mode, which no matter what Bungie says, is essentially Horde mode with some small gameplay changes. Some of my favorite Halo experiences have been playing co-op with people, taking up fortified positions as Covenant come storming in, and killing them to death! My guess and hope is that Firefight is just like that but with better gameplay (I prefer Halo 3 first person combat to Gears third person) and with more excitement (the first 5-10 minutes in any game of COD: Zombies is always incredibly boring).

Regardless of my reservations, I’ll probably be lined up to get Halo 3: ODST day one. I doubt that it will make Halo jump the shark, but the potential is there. At the same time, every time you make bold changes, there is the potential to jump the shark, but there is also the potential for something great, so I’ll be hoping for the latter. After all, I am one of the 9000 people who still plays Halo Wars every night!

is it now time for me to switch to a PS3?

Only a couple days after I decide to level down once again and completely overhaul my 360 collection, my 360 gives me the 3 red lights. This is the third time this has happened to me, which will make this replacement the 6th 360 to have come into my possesion. (One of my first 360s was returned because it scratched and ground up my discs, and my 5th 360 is still currently working).

While I had issues with my first few 360s since they were so close to launch, this 4th 360 was a Zephyr that had a pretty long life cycle compared to the others (over a year!). In fact, without the red ring of death really spoken of much in the media these days, I had forgotten all about it so it was a nasty surprise. Luckily, I bought a Falcon Arcade unit as a backup for just such an occassion. But with my current setup now, the Falcon is sitting downstairs as a media streamer so it’s annoying that I have to carry it back and forth if I want to play games on it. And don’t get me started on how the .avi codecs are account specific for each 360. Grr.

What’s equally annoying is that a couple weeks ago, Microsoft decided to stop sending people coffin cases for their 360s. I’m guessing they got so many of them in that it was costing them too much money so they are now having people use their own packing boxes. I had to run around my house looking for stuff to put together…a box big enough to hold the 360 and stuff to pad it.

The 360 service center will probably be laughing at my packing job – it contains packing peanuts, air bags, and crumpled up newspapers. Not the most professional but I didn’t have enough peanuts or airbags to do the whole box since it was so big. Maybe if you guys actually sent me a coffin I wouldn’t have to resort to this!

For the time being, I guess I’ll spend more time with the Wii and PC…

When I was young, I remember playing all text adventures on the Commodore 64. They drove me crazy, and I absolutely hated them for forcing me to use my imagination. A few years ago, Capcom started a new series of games called Phoenix Wright, which is basically a linear text based game following a young attorney and his budding law practice. It sounds incredibly boring, which is what I thought, but after finally trying it out, I love this game and consider it a must try for any DS owner. Let me try to articulate why.

The game follows Phoenix Wright, the attorney, through a bunch of cases where he serves as the defense lawyer trying to get an innocent suspect acquitted. Each case follows the same formula, Wright searches for clues and evidence, interviews witnesses, and then goes to trial (sometimes multiple times in the course of a three “day” trial). What’s great about the game is its characters – they are funny, they all have unique personalities, and they all are incredibly charming. It’s almost like you are watching a television drama unfold, except you get to take part in it and you feel the same connection to the characters as you might in a long running program that you enjoy.

My favorite part by far of the game are the trials, where you cross examine witnesses by trying to use clues and testimony you have heard to discredit their testimony. In that sense, the game is a bit of a puzzler, you need to use logic to figure out what evidence discredits what statements, and the game is funny when you choose the wrong bit of logic. All in all, this game reminds me why I love the DS: I can take it in bite size chunks but I always end up playing more than I bargained. It’s the kind of game that makes you look forward to taking the train. I hear the sequels for the most part are not as strong, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be picking them up anyway.

A few weeks back I realized that I leveled down a bit in my gaming when I discovered that I no longer care about Achievements. Now I’m just playing games at leisure, and that step has trickled down to leveling down once again for me.

The next “phase” of my leveling down is that I’m just no longer interested in owning or playing mediocre to decent games. I discovered that with my backlog of like 20+ games or so, I no longer care to play most of them! I did some thinking and decided to purge my collection of titles that I don’t think I’ll ever play, and rebuy titles that I sold that I felt I would play again and wanted as a part of my permanent collection. My backlog page has now been changed to “My Collection” and I am updating it accordingly.

Up until now, my gaming mentality has been: buy anything that seems remotely interesting, beat it and sell it. Starting this past weekend, I’m a lot more stringent, only buying games I know I want to keep and titles that rate fairly high on Metacritic. I don’t know if it’s a vision, but I sat down and went through the entire 360 release list and decided which games I wanted to have as part of my permanent collection. These were games that I figured I’d come back to play at some point.

Gamestop was very cooperative this past weekend, as they not only had a B2G1 used sale on everything in the store, but they also gave an extra $10 credit with any three games traded in. Most of the mediocre titles I had were practically clearance titles, so I was able to trade them in for almost $10 each after the promotion so I made out ok. 25 games were traded in this past weekend, with titles such as Dynasty Warriors 6, TimeShift, Beautiful Katamari, etc. These were never going to be played by me. I then turned around and took advantage of the used game promotion, rebuying games I wish I hadn’t sold such as Dead Space, Mirror’s Edge, Ninja Gaiden II, Rainbow Six Vegas, etc. All in all, it felt a little weird rebuying several games I already owned and beat, but I’m refining my gaming lifestyle now where if I were to look at my 360 collection, it would be full of hits that defined the 360 for me. But it makes me wonder, why is almost everything in my collection basically a shooter or a music game?

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl may have been a good game two years ago, but it’s not so good today.

Recently, I had heard that a second expansion to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl was announced. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl and its prequel, Clear Sky, are a PC-exclusive series that I had never played so I picked up both for cheap and decided to start with the original. I guess the best I can say is that I was let down.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. seems to be somewhat polarizing – there’s people that love it and people that hate it, but it’s generally agreed that the first game is better than the expansion. The game is actually like Fallout 3 in a way, as it’s post-apocalyptic and in 3D, but while Fallout 3 has RPG elements, Shadow of Chernobyl is merely a FPS game with item management. The game engine certainly doesn’t seem to have aged so well, as I found the graphics relatively clunky. I was also disappointed that there’s no statistics or any sort of leveling system, but graphics and RPG elements aren’t everything. After all, people enjoyed it right?

What ended up being the major turnoff in the game for me is just the interface. It’s not friendly or well designed at all. Whether it’s the item screen, the quest journal, using the map, etc. Everything seems to be somewhat of a chore. On top of that, there’s no way to fast travel across the world, so you’re busy just running until you get tired and then walking to your destination. Plenty of optional quests are also present in the game, with random item rewards that provide bonuses. Unfortunately, all the optional sidequests have time deadlines, so you can’t explore this post-apocalyptic world at your leisure. And they seem verry canned; nowhere near as immersive as the Fallout 3 sidequests.

My recommendation? Fallout 3 seems to have made this game age drastically and I’d say skip this in favor of Fallout 3. I may come back and play this during a slow spell, but I would have to probably be completely tired of everything else I have before trying to get back into this one.

Surprisingly enough, the 1 vs 100 beta has proven to be pretty enjoyable. Having never watched the show, I went in with low expectations. But something about the interface makes me wonder if this could be the future of gaming: not for video gamers, but for game show addicts.

Basically, 1 person is trying to outwit 100 audience members chosen at random as they answer trivia questions. I have no doubt that this show sucked in real life, and it was cancelled pretty quickly so I’m sure it did. But something about being able to play along, see tangible results (your avatar does fist pumps and can get “amped”), and the lure of potential prizes (even if the odds are incredibly slim) are enough to make me enjoy the experience. The prizes weren’t even real for the beta, so that’s saying something.

After playing 1 vs. 100, I actually now think that Xbox Live Primetime could be pretty cool in general. It better not be pay to play, because then I will hate it, but if it’s free, some buzz could really help the medium out. There are entire cable channels devoted to game shows and people love playing along at home, so maybe Xbox Live Primetime is a step towards allowing people to ACTUALLY play at home. This really could be the future! Check out the beta if you have a chance and do it with friends. At the very least you can compete with each other to see who gets the highest score per round, which works for me because I love to win.

Capcom has been riding high with the phenomenal sales of Street Fighter IV and Resident Evil 5, but how did their latest game, Bionic Commando, fare? Terribly. 27,000 copies sold for both the 360 and PS3 versions in the month of May - its release month. Compare that with Street Fighter IV selling almost a million in its release month, and Resident Evil 5 selling almost 1.5 million. 27,000 copies may be expected for a completely new franchise, but Bionic Commando has quite the following. After all, the downloadable Bionic Commando Rearmed title sold more than 130,000 copies in its first week of release so it definitely had a fanbase.

What went wrong? Potential reasons could be:
- Lack of marketing
- Poor multiplayer demo
- Boring main character
- Frustrating single-player

Maybe it wasn’t quite accessible enough for the casual gamers either, so when the hardcore gamers aren’t really liking it and the casual gamers can’t even play it, no one is going to buy the game. Some blame the main character design: a generic white guy with dreadlocks. I still blame the multiplayer demo being terrible. I wonder if the game would have sold more if the multiplayer demo wasn’t released?

It’s a shame too because it was released during a time where there weren’t any “monster hits”. The last monster was probably Resident Evil 5, but that was back in March. Think about the wave of enthusiasm that Capcom had with their recent big titles…it would have been natural for Bionic Commando to continue the Capcom love but instead it brought the train to a screeching halt. I’d hate to be Grin right now.