When I was in Japan, I was pleased to see more portable gaming devices being played everywhere, especially on the subway. I hate to admit it, but whenever people were playing on the subway, sometimes I’d try to sneak a peak at what they were playing. It’s like DS stalking. On one particular subway ride, I managed to catch a peek of a kid playing some game that looked like a RPG, but there was something different about it – the protagonist was kicking around a soccer ball. Intriguing… Turns out the kid was playing the third installment of the Inazuma 11 series, a wildly popular soccer RPG series in Japan (and a very popular kids anime). I decided to pick up the first game in the series (in Japanese of course) and ended up playing that for the rest of my trip. What is a soccer RPG? Is the game only for kids? Is it weird to stalk people’s portable gaming choices? (Probably). Hit the jump for answers to all these questions and more!

What is a soccer RPG?
As I mentioned in my gaming in Japan article, the soccer RPG has been a pretty strong genre in Asia for awhile. It all started with Captain Tsubasa, which was a unique take on the traditional sports game. Based on a Japanese manga, Captain Tsubasa had you playing different matches, but it was different from an ordinary soccer game. Whenever you were approached by another player with the ball, the game paused and you were given a list of options – slide tackle, press, hold position, etc. (it was all in Japanese). You could choose one of these options just like you could choose Attack, Magic, or Item in a traditional RPG – hence the term soccer RPG. There were also special moves – special slide tackles, ridiculous shots, goalies propelling themselves off goalposts to make a save, so those kind of served as magic spells. It was an awesome game and there were tons in the series, including a release on DS last year.

These games were and are a lot of fun because they combine a strong storyline with persistent features, your players level up as you continue to play. Thus they learn new techniques, get stronger and faster, and you face more difficult opponents as the game progresses too. The soccer RPG is really a lot of fun, and I loved the Tsubasa games as a kid and am interested in checking out the newest version now.

Inazuma 11 has taken the soccer RPG to a whole new level – adding in the overworld of a regular RPG to the RPG elements of the sports game side of it. You are the talented goalkeeper Endou Mamoru, captain of your junior high school’s soccer side that only has seven members. You start the game by recruiting players to join your team, including Goenji, a star striker who has just transferred to your school, and the story continues from there.

Even if you can’t read the case, there are only three letters you need to understand

So how do you actually play the game?
The overworld will be familiar to anyone who has played a RPG. You walk around the school (and eventually the entire city), talking to people, finding treasure chests, and buying equipment for your players. In addition to the team you start with, there are over 1000 players in the game who you can recruit to play on your team (mind boggling, it’s like Pokemon I guess. No wonder kids like it). You don’t have to recruit players though, since the story helps you build a big enough team to play the matches your team plays.

There are two types of battles in the game – random battles and matches. Random battles occur as they do in any RPG, you walk around and then there is a CRACK and bam you are fighting. You can choose to fight or flee – shocker. The random battles consist of four of your players playing a quick 15 second soccer game with four random enemies. You either have to score a goal, steal the ball from the enemy, or not let them score for the 15 seconds.

Gameplay is pretty straightforward – you can draw lines with your stylus moving players around the map. If a player has the ball, you tap the stylus where you want him to pass the ball, if he is close enough to goal and you tap the goal, your player can shoot. Whenever you shoot or get shot upon, you can choose between different actions (strong shot, chip shot, etc.), or if your players have special techniques you can use those as well. The same thing happens when two players are fighting for the ball. Even though the gameplay is straightforward and can be a little repetitive, it can get pretty addicting, and it is definitely possible to lose these random battles. They don’t result in a game over, you just lose some experience points and money.

The matches are full 11 on 11 soccer matches – you play 30 minute halves and the team with the most goals at the end wins. These matches can get pretty intense, if you haven’t leveled up the players on your team enough, the computer has a distinct advantage, and most of my games have come down to one or two goals. In fact, the team ends up playing in a tournament, and I advanced twice only on penalty kicks. Maybe I’m just not that good at kids’ sports games…

The gameplay is quite strong, and it has to be for me to keep playing the game. I check an FAQ online to keep track of the story, but really, not being able to read a lick of Japanese besides yes or no means the story isn’t really what’s keeping me playing. It’s just a lot of fun to learn new techniques and to use them against harder and harder opponents.

Lost in translation?
The biggest bummer for me is the fact that I generally have no idea what’s going on. I go from battle to battle, and I follow the huge purple arrow telling me where to go in order to figure out who I have to talk to next. Of course, I never have much idea why I’m talking to them, and I’m usually just playing to get to the next match. That being said, I’m really enjoying my time with the game, and would highly recommend it to anyone willing to take a flier on a different type of game. It’s refreshing to play a totally different type of game than what I am used to. It’s tough to find in the US, though you can Ebay it for more than its worth. I got it for less than $20 US in Japan, so if you ever happen to be flying across the Pacific, definitely keep an eye out! I also hear that it’ll be released in Europe soon, that means I might be able to get my hands on an English version! Here’s hoping.

I’ve decided to give in and partake in Leveling Down’s Summer of Starcraft. Not that I haven’t been playing hours and hours of the game (much to my wife’s chagrin), but I wasn’t sure if having six straight articles on Starcraft was what the people wanted. Nevertheless, espion4ge has been focused on multiplayer, so I figured I’d give my single player impressions – especially for those of you considering buying this game that might be a little intimidated by the multiplayer suite. Hit the jump for my impressions!

“Hell, it’s about time!” – The Saga Continues
I’ve been waiting over a decade for the Starcraft story to continue. I know a lot of people don’t care too much about the single player, but I for one have been dying to know what’s transpired since Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades, basically took over the entire universe. Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty, is the first in a three part trilogy that will tell the story.

Wings of Liberty follows your old buddy Jim Raynor and his buddy Tychus Findlay as they set out to overthrow Arcturus Mengsk, the evil emperor who controls the Terran worlds. Same old same old, right? Not quite. Although you run into a lot of familiar faces, the story introduces some new characters that inject some flavor into the story.

The storyline is standard space saga fare, and most, but not all, of the twists and turns are pretty predictable. Still, it’s a story well worth hearing – one that does a great job resetting the playing field and setting up some killer sequels. I definitely didn’t walk away from the single player campaign disappointed.

“I am here, click me!” – Branched Pathways
The original Starcraft basically had you playing through all of the missions in order. Wings of Liberty introduces a new mechanic – after the initial missions, you are given the choice of branching storylines. There are multiple characters on your ship and each of them has their own unique storyline that you can follow through to the end. A lot of the stories dovetail, but it’s pretty neat how you can choose missions – it makes you feel like the commander of the ship and your army. There is also a short Protoss arc where you get to play as the Protoss, which is a nice diversion.

The other new addition to the gameplay should be familiar to any fan of the Wing Commander series. Between missions, Raynor can travel to different areas of his ship, talking to characters, watching newscasts (they’re pretty funny), and upgrading your units. Each mission you complete earns credits (which doesn’t really make sense if you think about it, but whatever). You can use these credits to buy upgrades for your units or to hire mercenaries that you can use in battle. Again, it gives you the feeling of commanding your troops, especially since you can’t afford all of the available upgrades. Overall, I definitely liked the break in the action that time on the ship gave me, although at times it can break up the action.

“Fight or Flight? Yeah, right” – Varied Gameplay
Compared to the original Starcraft, there are a plethora of mission types in Wings of Liberty. It feels like every single mission is unique. Each battle involves a different scenario, some of which really affect the way you have to play the game. Sometimes it’s just a matter of getting in and out as quickly as possible, at other times you have the time to build up your army and systematically roll through your opponents.

There are a couple of notable missions – there is a secret mission that you can find and play which is a ton of fun. The last Protoss mission is also a blast and a very clever take on a tried and true mission type. You also have missions where you need to move your base multiple times (remember Terran can lift their bases) and there’s even a zombie apocalypse type mission. The gameplay is stellar, even if you don’t care about the story, it’s a lot of fun to see the different things Blizzard throws out you. They did an excellent job of changing the way the game plays without changing too much. I don’t want to spoil too much, but trust me – the campaign is worth it.

“People lose teeth doin’ that” – Achievements
The last thing of note about the single player campaign is the achievements. I know I’ve been trying to kick this achievement habit, but the achievements in Wings of Liberty are downright addicting. Not only do you unlock achievements, but you also unlock portraits that you can add to your profile and use in multiplayer. The achievements definitely affect the way you play the game, but none of them are annoying like kill 200 pigeons or anything like that. It can be pretty difficult, but it feels really rewarding to unlock some of the achievements. Be warned though – they’ll take a lot of time. I probably can’t do half of them, so I’ll just take what I can get.

“The Swarm will consume all” – Parting Thoughts
Even if you’re not interested in the multiplayer, the single player campaign could lock up a good 20 or 30 hours of your life. I literally feel torn between playing single and multiplayer, both are amazing options. For fans of the original story, Wings of Liberty is well worth the wait – too bad we have to wait again for the next installment. For new players to the series, the single player is a great introduction to the different units in the game – just bear in mind that some of the Terran units aren’t available in multiplayer. I love all the new additions and some of the cutscenes are amazing as well. Starcraft, welcome to the 21st century.

Torchlight is a relatively recent Diablo-style action RPG game that was released on the PC last October. Being a single player only game, it retailed for $20, but with it also being on Steam, it’s gone on sale several times for the measly price of $5. At $5, it’s a recommended purchase for anyone, but at $20, I believe you may need to be more of a serious solo Diablo player to get your money’s worth. I’ve sank about 7-8 hours into the game so far, and am ready to share my thoughts.

The Relationship Between Torchlight and Blizzard
As a Blizzard fan, I’ve played and enjoyed all of Blizzard’s major franchises: Starcraft, Warcraft, and Diablo. I think it’s been a little more than 10 years since Diablo II was released! Since then, the studio behind the Diablo games (Blizzard North) folded after several employees left to form new development studios such as Flagship Studios and Castaway Entertainment. Flagship Studios released one terrible game, Hellgate: London (which I bought!) and one good game, Mythos, before that company went under. Mythos was more akin to the Diablo games that the designers were famous for, and because it was such a hit, several of Flagship Studios’ employees formed a new company called Runic Games. Runic Games then went on to release Torchlight in October 2009 of last year. With the game being developed by the designer of Fate (a Diablo II clone), and the co-designers of Diablo and Diablo II, Torchlight is basically a spiritual successor to Diablo II.

What is Diablo?
For those that missed out on this pillar of Blizzard’s tri-universe, Diablo is a dark and arguably gothic action-RPG game that is a major clickfest. The game is played in isotromic view and the original allowed you to choose from three different classes as you made your way through randomly generated dungeons to take on bosses and eventually Diablo himself. What made the game so addictive wash the leveling up, stat & skill allocation, and the loot you could find. I believe that when Diablo 1 was released, there wasn’t an online battle.net interface so you could only play through the old-school network settings.

With the release of Diablo II, it had full battle.net support and allowed players to create online rooms for others to join. When more players played in a room, the rate for rare item drops would increase. Online play in Diablo II brought about marketplaces and trading as well as the ability for players to duel, and at that point, people were addicted. I remember doing so many boss runs looking for unique and set items for my different classes while my little brother would just duel all day and collect ears from defeated opponents like trophies. I feel that many of the addictive and enjoyable qualities of the Diablo games have made their way into World of Warcraft in some form or another, and I would still strongly recommend Diablo II today for those of you that love loot-based games but don’t want to play an MMORPG.

Torchlight’s “Evolution”
Diablo II increased the number of character classes you could select over the first one to something like 7 classes, there hasn’t been a sequel to the beloved game in the last 10 years. Since then, several other companies have released clones, such as Sacred, Titan Quest, and now, Torchlight. However, it’s not necessarily fair for us to think of Torchlight as a Diablo clone since it was designed by the same people that designed Diablo – and it looks like they’ve learned a thing or two from then. New to Torchlight over Diablo is the reduction to only three character classes, making things more streamlined and easier to get into. It reminded me of the success of Battlefield 1943 and how the classes were more simplified, allowing players to focus more on the gameplay itself. Torchlight also introduces a pet, allowing you to load the pet like a mule and ability to send the pet back to town to sell items when your bags are full. There are also various other improvements as well that make the game very easy to get into. In a sense, it may be better to start with Torchlight if you’re new to this genre, and then move over to Diablo II for multiplayer if you can’t wait for Diablo III (still no release date).

Hours 1-5
I’m going to try something different today and share my impressions just based on my hours of play. When I first started playing Torchlight, I was amazed at how charming and addictive it was. As a past Diablo player, I found Torchlight to be very intuitive and while many things were simplified, the core gameplay that made the Diablo games so fun was still in tact. There were still unique boss monsters that dropped rare items. You still had scrolls of town portals and scrolls of identify to find out what your mysterious items would be. But then there were things that made the game even more enjoyable as well – no durability on items, vendors that would sell scrolls to randomly generated dungeons, a chest that you could drop items into that all the characters you create could access, etc. I was having a lot of fun and the first 5 hours I played I didn’t even notice before I had to go to sleep.

Hours 6-7
It was not until the 6th & 7th hours that I started to run out of steam. I don’t know if it’s because the lack of multiplayer (and the ability to trade, party up, and find rarer items) or because I simply am not as hardcore as I used to be, but I started to find the game repetitive. In a way, the Diablo games were repetitive as well, but being able to play with friends may have made the ultimate difference. As I descended floor after floor deeper into Torchlight’s dungeons, I actually grew lonely. Here was a game that pretty much did everything right from a Diablo-style gameplay point of view, but the painful lack of multiplayer became more and more evident.

Hour 8
This final hour of my gameplay with Torchlight may end up being its last. I started telling my brother about the game and how much fun I was having in the earlier hours, but now I am realizing that even if I persuaded him to buy it, it’s not like either of us could play together so what was the point. What was the whole point of this game and lootwhoring if there was no public to parade my loot around to?! Of course, we all play games for different reasons. I still believe that if you’re one of those guys that played the Diablo games or its clones and was perfectly happy playing it solo for dozens of hours, you’re in for a treat with Torchlight. It’s the best single-player Diablo-style game today. Unfortunately for me, I’ve discovered that I need the multiplayer and am curious to see how Runic Games handles its new “free to play” Torchlight MMORPG that’s being worked on now. Maybe it will end up competing with Diablo III?

As I’ve mentioned oftimes on this site, I spent a lot of my formative years playing deathmatch in Doom 2 over the modem. I have a lot of fond memories of the game, and after a lot of thought, I finally decided to buy in on XBLA. Since then, I’ve poured at least 20+ hours into it, and I’m not even halfway done, so I definitely have gotten my money’s worth. The question remains, is this old school game worth picking up on XBLA for non-nostalgia reasons? Hit the jump for my impressions and my thoughts on that question.

Dead Simple
For younger readers of the site, Doom and Doom 2: Hell on Earth, were games that really helped to put the first person shooter genre on the map. Obviously, the genre has advanced by light years since then, but Doom has the distinction of doing it very early on. As it stands, the graphics are kind of pixelated, you can’t look up or down, nor can you even zoom in with any of your guns. There is no real storyline whatsoever, basically some portal of Hell has opened and demons and zombies abound – your job is to kill them. What little story there is reveals itself via simple text. So Doom 2 is not anywhere near the experience of first person shooters today – it’s just a simple run and gun, point and shoot type of game. With that being the case, I have found myself asking myself why I haven’t been able to put the game down. Nostalgia only goes so far, and I’ve pretty much exhausted that aspect of the game.

Tricks and Traps
Even though the gameplay is relatively simple, the creators of Doom 2 did a fine job mixing things up and keeping them interesting. Each level contains a lot of traps – if you see armor or a weapon sitting out in an open area, you can be sure that as soon as you pick it up a trapdoor will open putting you under siege by a flood of enemies. Or can you? As the game progresses, it becomes trickier and trickier, mixing things up, turning out the lights, springing traps at more random times. It makes every moment of the game tense and covers up a lot of the simplicities in the gameplay.

Something else that appeals to me and maybe others is the vast number of secrets in each level. There are secret doors, secret areas, and secret items to be found throughout the game. It reminds me a bit of Zelda, except instead of hearing a cool musical chime when you find a secret, you’re generally met with a demon in your face. It’s still pretty rewarding though, provided you survive!

Grosse
Another strong point of the game is the variety of enemies you face, especially in light of how “simple” the game is. There are tons of different enemy types and they each present their own challenges. It’s a lot of fun to figure out how to handle each enemy type, and the game does a great job at throwing enemies at you in different combination, forcing you to change your style of play.

Something else that makes the game a lot of fun is the fact that you have to fight all these enemies with a limited amount of ammo. Back on the PC, people used to be able to enter cheat codes and roll through the game. Not anymore. Doom 2 has always represented a difficult, old school challenge, and it’s no different on XBLA. If you like an old school challenge, this might be for you.

Barrels o’ Fun
At the end of the day, Doom 2 can be a lot of fun if you know what you’re getting yourself into. Sure, the game is about 20 years old, so you need to know that going in. At the same time, I can’t think of modern day games that offer the same kind of experience. Maybe it’s a bit old school, but I love the rush I get when enemies jump out at me from nowhere. Adding to the fun is the fact that there’s an entirely new campaign tacked on, which I haven’t even gotten to try yet. I’ve heard that it’s even more difficult than the original. All in all, you get a lot for your $10 (plus I’m sure it’ll go on sale sometime). It’s a bit of a bummer that nobody is playing deathmatch online, but I’ll take what I can get. If you feel like trying out something new that is something old, check it out!

After completing Mass Effect 2 last week, I decided to change gears a bit and fire up Demon’s Souls on the PS3. This was one of the games that I bought a PS3 for: a Japanese developed dungeon crawler that is said to be among the most hardcore games out there. After spending a couple hours with it this past weekend, I am inclined to agree that it is quite hardcore – but perhaps it’s either too hardcore for me or I’m just too leveled down to handle it. Read on for my thoughts and experience based on my first couple of hours with it.

Is this a Japanese version of Diablo?
As a gamer who loves loot-based games such as Diablo, World of Warcraft, etc. I’m always up for playing dungeon running games that allow for some combination of leveling up, learning skills, and finding more powerful gear. That addictive quality kept me playing games like Diablo II and World of Warcraft for years! Unfortunately for me, while Demon’s Souls is a dungeon crawler, it’s nowhere near as streamlined as Blizzard’s games or more typical Japanese action-RPG games. The best way I can share my impressions on this game are to just dive right into what makes it so hardcore.

Hardcore Aspects I Can Handle
The general consensus that I heard from gamers with regards to Demon’s Souls is that it is unflinchingly hardcore yet still quite addicting. The most notable hardcore aspect that I wasn’t surprised to encounter when I first started this game was that there were no checkpoints. When you die, you start at the beginning of the dungeon again, and you lose all of the souls you collected. In this game, souls are like currency, and you get them from killing enemies or finding them on fallen corpses. Souls are basically everything in this game.

Let me be more accurate about the losing of souls – when you die, your corpse actually still remains in the spot you died, along with all of the souls you had accumulated up to that point. If you can make your way back to the corpse, you can regain all of your souls. These two aspects make the game already pretty hardcore, and while it can be frustrating, these are features that are fair because you know them going in.

Of course, I stopped playing the game this weekend because I got pretty far into the first dungeon, got killed and could never get back to that corpse. It was basically in an area where a dragon flies across the only path you can walk and burns you while you’re getting attacked by all sorts of arrows from archers in the area. I fought my way back several times to try to get back to my corpse, but every time I would die and could not retrieve my corpse. My corpse with all the souls I had accumulated over the past 2 hours was in a ridiculous death spot that I don’t think I could retrieve. I grew frustrated and turned the game off, and figured I’d try to go get my corpse the next time I played.

When I fired up the game again later, I tried to make my way back to the corpse, but after a few tries, a new snag presented itself: my primary weapon had lost so much durability that I couldn’t even kill enemies any more with it. And what’s worse, I couldn’t repair my weapon because all of my souls were basically on my corpse. Now what? Well, I ended up using a different weapon that my character was not so skilled in, and by some stroke of luck was able to fight my way through the dozens of enemies to where my corpse was – except that it was no longer there. Turning off the game and coming back to the game wiped out my corpse and all of its souls! I was totally screwed at that point with no money, my main weapon broken, and no way to get home. At that point, I thought to myself, maybe I should just start a new character. Except then I started thinking about the other more hardcore things that made me end up putting this game back on the shelf.

Hardcore Aspects That I Can’t Handle
By now those of you that have been reading about my gaming know what type of gamer I am, and what type of RPGs I like. So even if I’m stating that I can’t handle these aspects of the game, this doesn’t necessarily mean that others can’t either. I know some people love this game, as I’ve seen some really complicated guides out there. In any case, here are some of the things that just made me feel the game was perhaps a bit too inaccessible to me.

The first is that there’s not a traditional “leveling up” that I’m used to in standard RPGs/dungeon crawlers. In Demon’s Souls – no matter how many enemies you kill, there’s no experience bar that makes you more powerful. The souls you collect from each enemy ultimately give you the opportunity to grow stronger, since it’s these currency orbs that you must use to buy stat points for your character. So here I am sitting in what would be considered the game’s “town” and trying to decide which stat point I should buy. There are some people that love stats and what to build – I am not one of them. Just level me up so I can get back to playing the game!

I mentioned earlier that the souls are the currency of the game – you earn souls from everything you kill and you use these souls to buy stat points to augment your character, items and weapons from the shopkeepers, upgrades and repairs to your current equipment, but sadly, you cannot sell any items. No one gives you souls for any item you pick up in the game – you have to toss it if you don’t like it. Oh and there’s a weight limit on the amount of stuff you can carry, so get used to tossing stuff you find that you can’t use. A minor issue, but an RPG game where you can’t sell items is just a bit too hardcore for me.

The worst aspect of the “hardcore-ness” of this game is simply the lack of any handholding whatsoever when you play this game. I got lost everywhere I went – even in the main town I couldn’t figure out how to even get to the first dungeon – and even after entering it I didn’t even know if it was considered the first dungeon. There’s no quest log book, breadcrumb trail, or anything. As I played the game, I didn’t even know if I was going the right way – except I discovered I was going the wrong way when I got killed by some crazy enemy. The lack of any sort of real way to understand where I was supposed to go probably led me to get myself killed in an area that I couldn’t even get back to so I could recover all of my souls and realize that my character was done for.

You’re Not Going Alone
While there are certainly hardcore aspects that I found frustrating, there were several innovative gameplay elements that Demon’s Souls introduced that were pretty neat. All of these cool features revolve around working with other Demon’s Souls players – even if you’re playing the game solo.

The first thing that’s pretty neat that Fable II introduced is the ability to see other players playing the game in the same area you are. You may walk forward and see ghosts of other players running around – I think these are other players actually playing the game as well and that’s their game! You don’t get to see everything – just short clips of them doing things so as to know that you have some company but not so much as to ruin what you are supposed to do next.

What’s more useful is the whole note leaving feature in the game. In any dungeon any player can leave a note anywhere. This note is readable by any other player in their own games as long as everyone is connected to the Internet. So for example, if you know that an enemy is waiting around a corner. you can leave a note that says “Beware of ambush ahead”. When other players come to the section for the first time, they can learn from that note! It’s very neat because as the game is so hardcore, these hints and tips that players leave for each other can really make a difference. Players can also rate notes as well, so if someone leaves a note that is actually useful, another player can give it a rating so then the score for that note goes up 1. When you come across notes that have very large player ratings, you know that it’s a valid note. Very cool stuff – I like the one that I read that simply said “Behind you!” so I had to turn around quickly to attack a hiding foe. I left a couple notes myself after I died at a couple places – hopefully others learn from my notes and give my notes  some good ratings too!

Finally, in addition to notes, there are blood stains on the floor – these are a result of players dying in  the dungeons. Every blood stain is a spot where a player died, and by touching a bloodstain, you can watch a “ghost replay” of that player dying in that area and how he/she died. In short, while you generally are playing this game alone, you can learn from other people as well. I really like these “community” aspects of the game.

Parting Impressions
If you’ve read through everything I’ve written, you’ve probably understood that in my two hours of playing this game, I got lost, went too far in some direction that I may not have been supposed to go yet, broke my weapon, and lost all my souls. I pretty much destroyed any chance of that character making it. The game has some truly hardcore features that frustrated me, but there was definitely fun to be had as well. The community aspects that I mention make the game more manageable, and I also got to take on my first boss which was pretty enjoyable too. I can’t help but feel that some aspects of what make the game hardcore are more about poor game design – is a hardcore game really supposed to have you lost for the entire game?

I’ll leave my impressions for this game as simply: “got off to a rough start, but maybe I’ll try again later.” Hopefully the next time I attempt to play this game in the future it turns out more favorable, because while I was put off by how hardcore it was, a part of me does want to go back to play it. Maybe that’s why it’s got such a fan following? I can’t say that I’m a fan just yet, but maybe in time…

I was able to check out the Monster Tale demo that was set up at E3 last week, and with the Majesco booth tucked away from the main show floor not many people got a chance to learn what DreamRift’s Monster Tale is about and more importantly, how it plays. That’s where I come in – while crowds were fawning over the newest Call of Duty, Gears of War, etc., I’m bringing you all impressions of a game that seriously has potential to be the sleeper hit of the year for both casual and hardcore gamers alike. Read on for some detailed impressions from this aging hardcore gamer.

Some Background on the Game
For those that have no idea what Monster Tale is about, it is the first game from the DreamRift development studio, formed by the lead developers behind Henry Hatsworth. These guys came up with a very innovative mash of two gaming genres: platformer and puzzle, and it worked quite well. They’ve decided to combine two gaming genre types as well with Monster Tale, combining Metroidvania-style gameplay on the top screen and monster “raising” on the bottom screen.

The game follows a young girl named Ellie, who suddenly finds herself in a different world. Not too long after arriving on this world, she finds a mysterious egg and it hatches right in front of her. Out pops an adorable monster, who decides to follow Ellie, thinking maybe she is its mother. She cares for the little guy and decides to name him Chomp. As they travel on, he continues to evolve based on how Ellie raises him. It may sound like a standard monster raising storyline, but it’s cute, effective, and simply works well.

What’s Metroidvania?
Monster Tale’s gameplay is very similar to “Metroidvania”, a gameplay style that is more of an adventure game than a platformer as you travel all over a huge 2D world and find new items that allow you to reach new areas. For example, in Metroid, you could find jump boots that would allow you to reach a new platform and unlock another area of a dungeon. The Castlevania series has evolved to this style as well starting with the beloved Symphony of the Night, and is now a franchise staple on the DS. From my time with the Monster Tale E3 demo, it appears that Monster Tale follows this gameplay style well and fans of both Metroid and Castlevania will be able to understand and enjoy Monster Tale very quickly.

The Monster
The most significant gameplay feature that Monster Tale introduces that I have probably never seen before is an actual pet companion with such depth. The game is almost more about the monster than Ellie, as the monster earns experience, levels up, learns new traits and abilities, and even evolves into various new forms. In contrast to that, it doesn’t seem like Ellie levels up at all, so it’s interesting to see that while you have direct control over Ellie, it’s the monster progression that will ultimately carry you through the game. I don’t know what else to say except that it plays wonderfully. The monster seemingly has its own unique AI where it will attack enemies when it can, but you can still call on it to perform specific special attacks. As it levels up, it learns new interesting attacks unique to its evolution type, such as forming a shield, performing a charge attack, etc.

At first I thought that the monster abilities would be pretty simple, but of the half dozen or so I got to experience in the demo, I was actually quite surprised. While the game looks family friendly, the gameplay is very much classic old-school gameplay goodness. Each of the 30 monster evolution types learns several different abilities, and you are able to map each ability to one of the face buttons of the DS. To activate an ability, you just have to hold the L button down and then hit one of the buttons. For example, I can have Ellie melee combo an enemy, send him flying, then hit L and tap the X button to send Chomp barreling towards the enemy for even more damage. Or when a monster is launching an attack at me, I can hit L and tap the Y button to have Chomp draw a shield. While it’s been probably something like 15 years or so since I’ve last played Duck Tales on the original Nintendo, playing this game did give me certain vibes of that old-school Capcom classic with  Scrooge McDuck using his cane as a pogo stick.

The two screens for the monster raising aspect of the game is also quite well done. While the top screen is all about the action, the bottom screen functions as Chomp’s “home”. Here, Chomp can rest and relax to rebuild his meter or interact with various items that Ellie comes across. Many of the items I came across had various interesting properties. The first item I found was a cookie, and when I dropped it into Chomp’s home, he studied it for a while before devouring it and gained experience points and stats. Then I found a soccer ball and let him check it out. After investigating it, Chomp kicked the ball and it started bouncing all over both screens, knocking out any enemies I came across on the top screen. Treasure chests were the most enjoyable to find, since Chomp would spend time unlocking the chests and all sorts of new goodies would pop out that he would further interact with.

The First Boss
At the end of the demo, I encountered the first boss: another child who had his own monster that was much bigger than Chomp. The child seems surprised that Ellie treats her monster with love while this kid seems to be enslaving his. You can’t help but feel bad for the kid’s mistreated monster, until the kid declares that he will take Ellie’s monster for himself as well. Then it’s on like Donkey Kong son!

The enemy monster started laying eggs and the eggs would hatch out little smaller monsters that started shooting projectiles my way. Fortunately, Chomp was able to fly up and knock them out while I focused on attacking the boss. The monster also started breathing fire, but Chomp started playing with a soccer ball on bottom screen and kicked it up to do some good damage to the boss.All in all, through a combination of melee attacks, Ellie’s trusty bracelet blaster, and Chomp watching out for her, we were able to take down the boss, and sadly, the demo ended at that point.

For Fans of Henry Hatsworth
Fans of Henry Hatsworth would expect these guys behind Monster Tale to have learned a thing or two from their initial game, and I have to say that so far, this is taking the good of Hatsworth and reducing the bad. Henry Hatsworth’s combo/juggle system returns, allowing Ellie to juggle enemies in the air with melee attacks for more drops. Interesting character design and amusing dialogue return. Having beaten Henry Hatsworth myself, I have to say that Hatsworth’s major issues were the locked rooms where you got stuck in an area and enemies just poured in from both sides, and the major jump in difficulty in the later worlds. In my extensive time with the demo, I didn’t come across any sort of locked rooms at all, at least, not any that forced you to be stuck in an area the size of the DS screen. That’s definitely a plus in my book! So far, the game has also been easy enough that it hasn’t been frustrating and it’s simply just enjoyable to play. I think that the change from puzzle to monster raising makes for a much smoother gameplay experience as well – the focus is now really on the top screen, and not having to worry about switching your focus to the bottom screen to prevent monster blocks from attacking you is quite a relief.

Parting Impressions
If the demo is a good indication of the full game, this is looking to be a day 1 purchase for me. As an old school gamer that isn’t so crazy about puzzle games, Henry Hatsworth’s unique combination of platformer and puzzler was good but not exactly what I was looking for. Yet with the core Hatsworth team’s sophomore effort of Metroidvania and monster raising, it’s fantastic. The combination of a charming story, memorable characters, and refined gameplay design position Monster Tale to not only be better than Henry Hatsworth, but quite possibly the best DS game release this year. Hopefully we learn more about this game in the months to come!

My sister in law visited us this past weekend and I was forced to play Just Dance on the Wii (which she brought). It is a testament to the power of the casual market that Just Dance has sold over 2 million copies – which is absolutely ridiculous to me. The name of the game by itself turns me off, but I have a rule in my household: any video game that my wife wants to play deserves a shot, because, frankly, the chances to game together are few and far between. So, is Just Dance worth its big sales numbers, or is it as bad as hardcore gamers assume?

How do I explain this game? I guess it’s kind of like a dancing game: there are a bunch of dance tracks, “classics” in the vein of Who Let the Dogs Out and Cotton Eyed Joe. As the song progresses, a character on screen does various dance moves, which you are supposed to imitate. These “dance moves” are full body action, and you are supposed to think that the Wii can interpret whether your moves are good or great or off. Of course, if you have any modicum of common sense, you probably understand that since you are only holding the Wiimote in your right hand, the game is only grading you on what you do with your right hand.

Not sure if they realized that or not, but my wife and her sister were doing all the moves anyway, perhaps because it was more fun that way. Regardless, I’m not sure how well the Wii picks up the movement of your right arm. I did some experimentation, and it didn’t seem like it picked up the moves all of the time. You don’t really fail out in the main mode, though, so you can just dance around like a lunatic regardless.

Anyway, I can’t completely pan Just Dance, even though I really want to. I mean, I would never play it unless my wife forced me to (she did), but I can see why it’s a big hit amongst casual gamers. It’s easy to pick up and play, and I’m sure it’s fun at parties – at the very least you can laugh at everyone who is playing. You can play with up to 4 people as well.

I would not recommend buying this game on your own: it has a 48/100 on Metacritic for a reason. But if you’re looking for something that a spouse, or perhaps a young child, you could probably do worse than Just Dance. Not much worse, but there is a little bit of room there. Just Dance is the biggest selling 3rd party title on Wii, which is pretty impressive. If you buy it for family and friends, they will probably like it. The casual market is alive and well, as this year’s E3 attests (every single Kinect game is a Wii knockoff), so we might as well just accept it.

As of Tuesday, I am a new owner of the Big Boss PSP! I’ve been fiddling around with it the last few days and playing it a bit on my subway commute to/from work. In this article, I’ll provide some impressions on the actual Big Boss PSP package itself as well as my thoughts and experiences overall as a first time PSP owner.

What’s in the Big Boss Limited Edition PSP Bundle?
When I went to go pick up my Big Boss Bundle from Gamestop earlier this week, I was actually surprised how small the box was. For something that was entitled big, the box was not quite as big as I imagined it would be. Still, it was a sexy black package and inside was the following:

- Camouflage PSP-3001 running firmware release 6.2
- 1200 mah battery
- PSP AC adaptor/wall charger
- Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker on UMD in a paper sleeve
- Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker instruction manual
- Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker voucher for in-game item
- 4 GB Memory Stick PRO Duo
- carrying case
- Voucher for download of 2012 film

Price: $199.99

Differences in Big Boss Bundle and Peace Walker Entertainment Pack
As a huge Metal Gear Solid fan, I thought that this bundle was quite reasonably priced. However, in comparison to the Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker Entertainment Pack that’s available at all retailers, it’s not THAT much better of a deal.

Both bundles retail for the same price, but the key differences are the following:
1. Big Boss Bundle comes with carrying case
2. Big Boss Bundle comes with 4 GB Memory Stick PRO Duo vs Entertainment Pack’s 2 GB stick
3. Big Boss Bundle PSP is Camouflage but Entertainment Pack’s PSP is “Spirited Green”

The difference between 4 GB and 2GB is starting to feel like the difference between 2GB and 1GB these days. If you want to use the PSP for more than just game saves you probably want something even bigger than 4 GB, but if you’re just using the PSP primarily for gaming, 2GB is more than enough room.I am not a fan of the carrying case I got with the Big Boss bundle, as it’s a soft case and I honestly don’t think it will protect the PSP much in my bag. But I guess it’s better than nothing?

The main difference, and this is probably what primarily drives gamers to with one bundle or another is the color of the PSP. Some people think that the camouflage is tacky looking, while others think that the “Spirited Green” is ugly. I fall in the latter. When I saw the camouflage PSP, I was excited and thought it was probably the best PSP color design I’d ever seen and it was quite fitting for a Metal Gear Solid bundle – especially with Metal Gear Solid 3′s Naked Snake. I thought the “Spirited Green” was repulsive, as it reminded me of green ectoplasm or something. Regardless, if you didn’t pre-order the Big Boss bundle before release, you’re probably stuck with the Sprited Green Peace Walker Entertainment Pack these days.

Impressions on the PSP Hardware
When I opened up the box and took out my new camo PSP, I was quite thrilled with it. The PSP has always looked pretty svelt – I marveled at its huge screen compared to my DS and iPod Video. The thing that I like most about the camo PSP is that it is a matte finish. It’s not this glossy fingerprint-magnet finish that I assume was present on older PSP models such as the black one. Totally thumbs up in terms of look and feel. I like that the analog stick is like a little nub and doesn’t protrude so much, but can’t understand for the life of me why Sony never bothered to design the PSP with a right analog stick as well.

One of my initial complaints about the PSP before buying it  is that its battery life is pretty bad. This is still true today. I think the PSP comes with a battery that lasts only about 3 hours or so for intense UMD-spinning games. However, one thing I did not know was that the PSP’s battery is easily replaceable. So if you’re going on a long flight, you can bring a second battery and easily swap it out should you need more game time. I’ve opted for an even more serious solution: buying Sony’s Extended PSP battery. At a little under $30 at some places, the official Sony PSP extended battery gives the PSP about 8-10 hours of game time. The only problem is that this battery is thicker than the one that comes with the PSP, so when you buy the extended battery, it comes with its own custom battery covers since it juts out a bit from the back of a PSP Slim (2000 and 3000 models).

I also don’t like how the PSP doesn’t close up like the DS does. This is merely because I like how the DS’s screens are well protected when not in play, but the PSP doesn’t have the same type of deal. Using the included Big Boss carrying case didn’t alleviate my concerns much either, so I ended up opting to buy the Logitech Playgear Pocket Slim, a PSP carrying case that seems to come very highly recommended. The case is made of extremely hard plastic, while also allowing for all main ports/functions on the sides of the PSP to be accessible and it allows you to add your own custom artwork to the case. One of the best cases I’ve bought for any of my portable gaming consoles hands down.

Impressions on the PSP System Interface and Features
Now with hardware impressions out of the way, I can talk a litte about what the system was like when I finally turned the machine on. I liked how the PSP dashboard resembled the PS3′s (I actually like the PS3 dashboard perhaps more than the 360), except one thing really stuck out for me: the PSP’s relatively poor resolution.

Personally, I thought that the resolution on the screen was going to be a bit higher than I saw, but the whole dashboard was more blocky looking than I thought. It feels like I’m looking at something between a PS1 and a PS2 in terms of graphics quality with letters and icons that are not so sharp. While it’s pretty neat that you can play something of this graphics quality portably nowadays, I actually thought its graphics would be a lot more comparable to something like the iPhone or the iPad instead of this “compositive video” like look. Perhaps the PSP’s age is really starting to show – at least, from a dashboard viewpoint. I will be fair and say that when I play the actual games, the graphics are much better. So why is the dashboard so blocky? Who knows.

One of things I want to also talk about is how excited I was to utilize the PSP as a media player. The little console does music, movies, and photos – I would have loved to take advantage of all of those features and perhaps retire my iPod video (and prolong the consideration of buying an iPad). The iPad sounded pretty cool with its 10 hour battery life, but that thing is $600 and I would still have to convert my .avi videos to .mp4 format if I wanted to watch them on the iPad. Unfortunately with the PSP, I have to still convert my videos to .mp4 format to watch on the PSP. But get this – I tried for 2 hours one night this past week trying to convert videos using a PSP converter tool (Xvid4PSP) into formats I read that the PSP  would recognize. No luck. I must have converted the same media file over a dozen times with various settings but the PSP refused to play it. I don’t understand why it’s so difficult. I gave up on the video converting for the time being – but I am very frustrated with it.

Playing music was fine – I copied over some MP3s I had onto the PSP memory stick and they played with no issue. Photos though, were somewhat of a problem. One of my big arguments I wanted to make for buying an iPad was that I have a lot of fan translated manga. The iPad’s huge screen would allow for definitely enjoyment of these manga jpeg files, but maybe the PSP would also work? I tried loading some manga jpeg files onto the PSP. While the PSP’s screen is a bit small, the jpeg viewer allows you to zoom in so you can theoretically follow along the manga panels by zooming in a bit. The biggest annoyance I encoutered though is that it takes a couple seconds before the zoom happens when you move to a different part of the image. The PSP only zooms in on the area of the image you are looking at, so every time you move on the image it takes a couple seconds to zoom in again. In short, this makes manga reading on the PSP with the image viewer not very feasible.

I guess I may have to keep the iPad under consideration still while making the PSP more of a dedicated gaming device. So how was my initial game playing experience?

First Gaming Impressions
The first thing I did when I loaded up my PSP was go to the store to download a couple PSP demos. I ended up downloading a demo of the PSN-only title Patchwork Heroes as well as a demo of Phantasy Star Portable. I didn’t quite understand how to play Patchwork Heroes but I only spent a couple minutes with it before moving onto Phantasy Star Portable. Both games looked great, but upon playing Phantasy Star Portable, I had my first experience with the poor controller design scheme of the PSP. In Phantasy Star Portable, the analog stick and the d-pad are pretty much next to each other, and one moves your character while the other one moves the camera. But because they are both under your left thumb, you can’t do both at the same time. On the 360 and PS3, your right analog stick typically controls the camera so you can move and control the camera at the same time, but the PSP cannot do that.

Phantasy Star Portable is not the only example of this understandably frustrating camera control scheme. The first retail game I bought and started playing this past week was Dissidia: Final Fantasy, as I found it on clearance at Target for $15 last weekend. Again, in Dissidia, the analog stick moves your character and the d-pad next to it controls the camera. You can’t really do both. But fortunately, for games like Phantasy Star Portable, there is a button to center the camera right behind your character, so while the lack of a second analog stick is frustrating, it’s not quite enough to ruin a game. Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker has a new control style, where the right face buttons control the camera and your triggers are the action buttons. This sounds very revolutionary for a PSP game and this may very well work when I eventually get to it!

Parting Impressions
As you can see from my impressions, the PSP was not quite able to deliver everything I hoped it would. The console itself looks and feels amazing, but functionally, it’s not quite there due to frustrations with how it handles media (just allow for Xvid codecs already like the PS3!) and the lack of a second analog stick making 3D games more difficult to play. But fortunately for me, the games I’m probably going to play most on the PSP are RPG and turn-based RPGs, so it shouldn’t be too bad. All in all, I’m satisfied with my PSP purchase (especially because of this Big Boss bundle) since it wasn’t too expensive, but I am curious to see if a PSP2 is announced at E3 next week and if it remedies some of these gripes I have with the current system. In any case, there’s still quite a backlog of PSP games I will be catching up on with my subway commutes, so expect more impressions and reviews from the PSP front in the future!

The Halo Reach Beta is pretty much over, but Bungie released two more game types last week that I wanted to talk about a bit. When Bungie started releasing information about the beta, Invasion and Generator Defense were the two gametypes I was most interested in, for two reasons. First, they are new objective based games, which I generally prefer to slayer. Secondly, they pit Spartans vs. Elites, which I thought could lead to some excellent gameplay nuances. How do the two modes end up stacking up? Hit the jump for my impressions, and some final thoughts on the beta.

Invasion Mode

If you asked me what I was most excited for before the beta dropped, it was Invasion. Spartans defending changing objectives against Elites, similar to Gold Rush in BFBC, except Halo style – what could go wrong? Unfortunately, a lot of things. I haven’t really read other reviews so I don’t know if I’m in the minority, but I really, really, REALLY dislike the way Bungie did Invasion mode. Let me count the ways.

1 – It is an objective based game where you don’t switch sides. So if you spawn as Spartans, you play through the game as Spartans, once, and when the game is over it’s over. After that you’re spit back into the lobby, but unless all 12 players decide to stick around, you can’t run it back on opposite sides. I cannot for the life of me think of the rationale behind this.

2 – Your team of six is split up into three squads of 2, which makes teamwork pretty difficult. I guess ideally everyone works together in pairs, but since everyone is partied up there isn’t much cross communication going on, and teamwork is pretty important. What’s worse is I joined a game with a party of 4 and they put us on separate teams. Seriously?

3 – The game is more chaotic than fun. In my 6 or 7 games, I mainly found myself running long, long distances to get to the objective, only to get killed in a spray of gun or plasma fire. The map Invasion is being played on is so expansive that you spend a lot of time running, and that’s no fun. Oh, and by the way, the objectives are pretty unclear too. The first couple games you really have no idea what’s going on.

4 – Tons of frustration, very little fun. Maybe I’m stupid.

Anyway, there are a couple of cool things, like evolving armor ability choices as the game goes on, and Invasion Slayer is actually pretty fun (although the scoring system makes no sense to me), but overall, Invasion is a major disappointment. Man, I’m still upset at how badly it failed to meet my expectations. It’s like sports teams I root for, expectations always = disappointment.

Generator Defense Mode

Well, if you can’t tell, I hate Invasion mode. But if you take all the hatred I feel for Invasion mode, flip it on its head, and call it love – that’s how I feel about Generator Defense mode! If that’s too unclear, know this: Generator Defense is awesoooomeeee. It’s another objective game, 3 Spartans vs. 3 Elites, except it makes sense. The 3 Spartans are tasked with guarding three generators, which the Elites need to destroy by shooting them, punching them, grenading them, whatever. The strategy comes into play when Spartans “lock down” the generators, making them invincible for a short amount of time. You can do this an unlimited number of times in the game after a brief cooldown. To win a round the Elites need to destroy all three generators. Generator Defense, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

Generator Defense is awesome!

1 – It is an objective based game with tons of strategy involved. Three players defend three generators. Three attackers are trying to take out those generators. Which generator do you rush first? Do you split up or stick together? Do you send a two person diversionary team while a third player sneaks in and destroys a generator? Do you station one Spartan at each generator or just let them take two and hold out for the final one? These are the questions that you need to answer in the span of seconds, and it’s tons of fun trying to figure out the strategy that works best for your team.

2 – In Invasion you get to choose where you respawn, but it isn’t very useful. Plus the map is so big it barely matters. In Generator Defense, choosing your respawn point is very strategic. Generator Charlie is under attack? Spawn by the yard. You want to rush Alpha? Spawn by the waterfall. It is a subtle layer of strategy added on top of the game that rewards players who want to take the time to figure out the nuances.

3 – Generator Defense features random weapon drops which are completely random. In one game I found a sniper rifle, in another a rocket launcher. These random drops ensure that you can’t get totally locked in to one strategy. For example, let’s say the Elites love going stealth, and sneakily are trying to creep up on a generator in stealth mode. Well, if there is a random rocket launcher on the playing field, that is a triple kill waiting to be had. The random weapon drops keep things fresh.

4 – Tons of fun, little frustration! This game mode is like the exact opposite of Invasion for me. I dropped into the game, knew exactly what was going on (because it’s designed so well), and knew exactly how I wanted to play things. Objectives are clear, spawn points are clear, and strategy is fun to figure out. This is everything that a multiplayer mode should be, and Bungie absolutely knocked this one out of the park. For me, Generator Defense and Stockpile totally make the beta worthwhile.

Beta Final Thoughts

I’d like to make one thing clear. If you’ve read my thoughts on the beta, you may think I am being overly critical of it. Hopefully readers can understand that I am critical because I have such high expectations for Bungie and the Halo franchise – after all, it is the reason I own a 360 and not a PS3. Despite my criticisms, I still think Reach will turn out to be a fine game and I’m looking forward to it. I’m also pleased that Bungie took some risks on innovating the classic Halo multiplayer experience, and even if everything doesn’t pan out, I respect the attempt to try something new.

I’ve been flipping back and forth in my mind about how I feel about armor abilities over the last two weeks. On the one hand, I’m still disappointed that the player doesn’t have more control over their personal loadouts. On the other hand, after more time with the beta, I am starting to see how armor abilities really open up the gameplay. Tycho from Penny Arcade first got me thinking about it, and I encourage you to check out his post here. I’ve excerpted my favorite part, focusing specifically on the Armor Lock ability (temporary invincibility):

“What [armor lock] does do – what it excels at doing – is making people look. Look, damn you! Over here! It drives them nuts when they can’t have you, there in your hermetic shell, it feels like a hostile act. Maybe they didn’t care before, but they care now. It’s like the Tanking dynamic that exists in online role-playing games: it draws focus, and in a team mode (particularly if an associate happens to be invisible) you can often pick up these rubberneckers for points. Essentially, it makes people behave irrationally, often against their own interests. Who wouldn’t want such sorceries at the press of a button?”

Tycho makes a great point – armor abilities not only change the strategy for a player, but also for his/her opponents. Since Halo isn’t designed like Modern Warfare, where the hundreds of combinations of perks and loadouts aren’t major game changers but more like subtle tweaks, correct usage of armor abilities becomes paramount. As players learn how to utilize the jetpack more effectively, or the perfect amount of time to stay in Armor Lock, etc., Halo is going to get very competitive as people learn to use armor abilities to gain an advantage. I think this could be a great thing for the series, since it’s not only going to be about how many bullets you can spray into your opponents, but also how effectively you outTHINK them.

Since Bungie is only dealing with 6 or 7 armor abilities, the trick will be in balancing them, which is what the beta was for. When you have tons of perks, they kind of naturally balance each other out, and there are multiple counters to different strategies. When you are only dealing with 6 or 7 variables, you’re generally looking at one solid counter or strategy for overcoming the advantage given by any one armor ability, so it needs to be perfectly balanced. I’m confident that Bungie will be able to figure that out.

What does that mean for the end user? It means that we can’t just approach Reach like any old Halo game, even though it feels that way at first. To maximize our results, we are going to have to learn all the subtleties that are hidden from us on first view. It definitely will take a lot of commitment, so the question is whether Bungie can create a system around the multiplayer suite that brings me back for more. In Modern Warfare, it’s leveling up that serves as the main draw. What will Halo Reach bring to the table? Is armor personalization going to be enough to bring people back for more? Or is the inherent fun of the game going to be the major motivator? I’m not sure, but I can’t wait to find out.

I haven’t bought a sports game for three years or so (I think it was Madden 2006 for the Wii, and that was more to try out the controls), so it might seem pretty out of character for me to be checking out FIFA World Cup 2010, the official video game of the 2010 World Cup. I’m actually a sports fanatic, it’s sports video games I’m not too big a fan of. But with the US poised to make a halfway decent showing in the world’s game this year, I’ve got World Cup fever and I decided to pick the game up after trying the demo. The game is a blast, and although I don’t know enough about sports games these days to review it, I definitely can give my impressions for anyone interested in checking it out.

The Beautiful Game

FIFA WC 2010 is tons of fun and looks great on the screen. With a few simple button presses you execute moves on the field that take years to master and it looks amazing. I’ll never forget the goal I scored with a back heel off a low cross in injury time in a group stage game – I literally ran around the living room doing a celebration dance. (It would have been a perfect moment had my wife not been standing there with her arms crossed…judging me.) The game is tons of fun at any difficulty level, and over the course of a few weeks I’ve slowly moved up from amateur to semi-pro to professional level. I’m not sure how far I’ll keep pushing, but it’s fun to play and I feel like I’m improving.

In FIFA WC 2010, you can take any team through the entire World Cup tournament, starting from qualifying or just starting at the World Cup Finals. If you start in the Finals, you need to use one of the 32 teams that qualified, if you play through qualifying you can play as any of almost 200 teams. It’s an impressive roster and an added bonus is you can learn all the flags that you never learned in elementary school! It’s awesome to follow a team all the way through qualifying to the final, but it’s also a bit disappointing that the game doesn’t include a “simulate match” feature, meaning you have to play through every single game including friendlies. The only way around it is to forfeit, and even that requires that you start the game. Unfortunate.

You can also create your own player and “captain your country”, which involves you playing as only one guy throughout the entire campaign. There are also other modes that let you play through scenarios that happened in real life (score two goals in the last two minutes to win, for example), which are a neat edition. And of course you can participate in the online World Cup, but I tend to avoid that in order to avoid major frustrations. For me, the bread and butter of this game is just playing in the tournament with a team, it’s kinda silly but it feels thrilling to win the World Cup. The presentation, voice commentary, and music do a good job of ratcheting up the drama to an appropriate level. According to my simulations, the good old US of A will win the 2010 World Cup. HUZZAH!

The Real Deal

From the design of the menus to the fonts to the soundtrack, FIFA WC 2010 screams authenticity. This is the first ever World Cup to be hosted by an African nation, and the menus do a great job of capitalizing on that. The music tracks are great and feature some African beats, there is the sound of the vuvuzelas coming from the crowds (they basically sound like bees buzzing), and the stadiums are faithfully reconstructed. This even extends to the qualifying matches, you can tell the difference between a soccer poor nation’s stadium and a soccer rich one. Playing against Gambia is very different than playing against England in Wembley. These little touches really help to add to the experiences.

Another authentic feeling is the sound in the stadium and the player reactions when a goal is scored. You can customize your celebrations, but really, all I want to see my player do when he scores a goal is run madly around the pitch and into the arms of a teammate. And run they do. There is also the look of dejection on the losing team, and the commentary by the announcers, which isn’t amazing, but remains solid throughout and doesn’t take you out of the action.

One negative about the presentation is the player faces. Even a few years ago, players on the screen looked like their real life counterparts, but I’m not sure about this game. Obviously I am most familiar with the American players, but they all look off. Some of their skin tones aren’t even correct, which is a travesty in my mind (and borderline racist). I know they had to do player models for 198 countries or whatever, but they could have taken a little more time to get the stars to look right. I guess this is where you counter with the fact that no US player is really a star, but still, EA is an American company. Come on.

Not enough build up in the midfield

There are also a few other nagging issues. Instant replays are only about 5 seconds long, which is kind of ridiculous. Soccer is a beautiful sport and it takes a lot of passes to create a goal, but the replays are not nearly long enough to see this. I remember in ESPN 2k5 (best football game ever) I could practically replay the entire game, so these replays feel super short. It’s a disappointment.

Also disappointing is the fact that the game doesn’t make it clear what’s needed for qualifying in the different regions. A lot of the fun of a soccer tournament is doing the calculations to figure out exactly what each team needs to do to advance in the tournament, except you don’t really know what you need to do to advance so you can’t do the calculations! I’ve found myself looking up the tournament qualification on wikipedia, but EA could have made it a lot easier.

Put it in the back of the net – again and again

FIFA WC 2010 is a game that’s tough to put down. Like any sports game, it can get pretty repetitive, but it’s fun repetition. No two games play out the same way, and soccer is such an involved sport that there are tons of new techniques you can throw into the game. I still haven’t mastered all of the basic moves, let alone some of the advanced ones. And it’s a great game to unwind with after a long day, I just flip it on, play 4 minute halves, and have some fun. Sure it can be frustrating when the computer scores at the last second to beat you, but it’s exhilarating when you pull off the same move. Supposedly the FIFA series is one of the best sports games out there period, and I can definitely believe it. I highly recommend checking this game out if you love soccer or are interested in playing a fun sports game. I find myself wanting to play it more than the Halo Reach beta, which is not an indictment of the beta at all. It’s just with the World Cup coming up, I’ve got soccer on the brain, and the long and short of it is that FIFA World Cup 2010 is just flat out fun. GOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL!